


Even if I never left your side (I shall return to you)

by Lori_Cifera



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant until it's not, Demon Shane Madej, Horror, Humor, M/M, Slow Burn, buzzfeed unsolved is canon other buzzfeed stuff mostly ignored, demon shane, gonna play with the demon lore tbh, he's a demon ok, heavily based on the episodes though, heavily episode based, i guess, is probably the way to put it, ish, whatever happened to shane's improv class will we ever find out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2019-10-26 01:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17736542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lori_Cifera/pseuds/Lori_Cifera
Summary: The being currently going by the name of Shane Madej did his job well. Was careful to cultivate a certain kind of image. People would recall him later and go 'that tall guy? He's nice' and leave it at that. He was reliable.So when Ryan Bergara asked him for a small favor he of course agreed.And it led to something neither of them expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I ended up trying my hand on writing Demon Shane haha. I guess this is technically RPF but personally I think it's so far removed from reality it hardly counts. I've made a specific effort to distance it from reality and largely just consider Buzzfeed Unsolved and the Q&A 'canon' and ignore lot of what goes into the production of these shows.  
> I am going to trust all my readers not to confuse fiction and reality, yea?

It had, originally, been more of an accident than anything. In hindsight getting involved in a project like that had been a terrible idea. The creature currently going by the name of Shane Madej was an old demon, and he had gotten to be that way by keeping to himself. Once upon a time it had been by being a hermit, or a voice in the dark. He had spent a few hundred years luring people into a pond. But those days were behind him.

Times were changing, and everyone, even humans, could feel it.

Every century there were less and less demons around. Less and less magic. Demons were by their very nature solitary, but Shane had once upon a time made an effort to keep in contact with any demons he knew, if mainly to stay aware of any potential threats.

But slowly over time they had all seemingly disappeared. Or went into hiding. Became a weak whisper in the dark only strong enough to scare little kids. Content to feed off of the scarps of fear they could find in the most abandoned of locations.

Shane was determined to not let that happen to him.

So, for a decade or two he had taken on an unassuming human form, stolen the name and identity of a dead man, and become involved. Blended in with people. Never staying in one place for too long so no one picked up on the things not quite right with him. He had made mistakes first, but over time he perfected mimicry of humans into an artform. Eventually he even started doing random jobs. Writing had come easily for him, and Hollywood had piqued his interest.

Acting.

Pretending.

Lying.

So he had traveled to Hollywood, gotten an actual apartment and a computer and spent all his days watching human TV. Built a mental library of pop-culture references to blend in. Made a list of what a person like this 'Shane Madej' would be expected to do.

Approached creating this new persona like a character. He had taken an improv class even.

A fun anecdote to tell at parties.

“I met some of the most annoying people in existence,” he would flash a smile. “But they also met me.”

People would laugh, and think of it as a joke.

He knew how to keep his coworkers happy, but in a way that he stayed unremarkable. Disappeared into the crowd. He did his job well. Cultivated a certain kind of image. People would recall him later and go 'that tall guy? He's nice' and leave it at that. He was reliable.

That's why Curly was now standing in front of his desk, asking for a favor.

Shane collected favors, after all.

You didn't lose your soul, nothing as drastic as that, but perhaps, in the dead of the night you'd see a dark figure from the corner of your eye. Just long enough to lose sleep for the night.

Just enough to feed a demon.

Unless you were a member of an insufferable improv class-

Shane was snapped out of his reverie.

“Brent just told me he won't be able to do the next episode. Told me to break the news to Ryan.”

Shane let out a sympathetic 'hmm'.

“I don't know how Ryan will take this. He had been working so hard on this show.”

“I could help.” Shane smiled. It was a very pleasant smile. “If this guy, Ryan? Ryan really wants me to help him tell him to come ask me.”

And he did.

Shane had seen Ryan around the office before. Nothing special. Just one more human.

He reached out his hand. “Ryan.”

Shane shook it.

“Sorry for such a short notice. I just need someone for one episode. You okay on camera?”

“I took an improv class once. I could probably make a funny voice or something.”

“Nono. Just. You ever watched the show? You get the gist of it?”

“It's about unsolved mysteries, right? Serial killers, murders-”

“Basically, yeah. So I have this case file, I'll present it, I need someone to bounce off of.”

“A co-host.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Brent was working fine, arguing against me well. I'm gonna slip in some a bit more out-there theories, feel free to react accordingly.”

“You mean mock you? Make fun of you?”

“Curly did warn me you might be too nice for it.”

“We'll see.” Shane shrugged. “And it's just going to be one episode, right?” He looked Ryan in the eye. “If you want my help you know you just gotta ask.”

“Will you help me?”

Shane smiled. “Pleasure to be working with you.”

 

* * *

 

“So, what is this episode on?” Shane sat next to Ryan.

“The Illuminati, is it a real thing, what is it-”

“It's not a thing,” Shane interrupted him.

“Right, approach it with an open mind!”

But his annoyance was fake, Shane could tell.

Shane listened to Ryan explaining the background on Illuminati. Whether it was a real thing or not, Shane didn't know, and quite frankly he didn't care. It sounded to him like a secret clubhouse at best, and even if it had existed once upon a time, any modern organization wouldn't have much to do with the original secret society.

“So.. so this is just a bunch of hobos and rapscallions...”

Ryan burst into laughter, and Shane took it as a good sign.

He continued, pointing out the holes in Ryan's arguments. Which the human had made very easy.

“28% of people probably believe that... The sun moves around the Earth!” Shane exclaimed.

“W-I don't have any scientific polls for _that_ -”

“I'm just sayin' people are dumb,” Shane pointed out. This was easy! Just showing up to make fun of stupid theories?

“Okay,” Ryan laughed.

Shane decided to dial it back a bit. No need to be too honest. And he wasn't sure how much Ryan believed of the nonsense he was spouting.

But Shane also didn't care.

He did find playing the role of an asshole skeptic very easy though.

“Lizard people? So _this_ is the one you're really into?”

“I didn't say so!” Ryan protested. He continued nevertheless:“The lizard race feeds off of the human race and occasionally demands sacrifices-”

Shane contemplated for a moment if there was some truth to it. He wasn't a lizard after all (unless an effort was made) but he did feed off of humans. However no demon he had ever met was organized enough to form a wide-spread secret society controlling everything.

They were far more likely to hide under bridges making angry noises at humans passing by.

“The third theory is that the new world order is connected to the Anti-Christ because the Illuminati are Satanists.”

Well he could believe that. Humans got into weird shit. But once Ryan continued Shane interrupted again:

“So the Federal reserve was... created to spite Jesus? Lucifer was like pulling numbers-”

“Well you got a lotta time on your hands if you're Lucifer-”

“He's busy!” Shane protested.

“Why would he be busy? Hell is supposed to be an awful place, I imagine the place is terribly maintained-”

_What was it that the humans believed again?_

Shane stumbled with his words.

“He's torturing the souls of the all of the monsters throughout history there's a lot of dead peoples and he's like pokin' them all with lil' sticks!”

He mimed poking Ryan with a pitchfork and the human pretended to be hurt, laughing.

 _I shouldn't say more_.

He let the topic of Hell and demons drop.

Even if it might be likely Ryan would find himself sucked in there by the end.

If he really was intent on sticking his nose in things where it didn't belong.

“Say lizard people out loud!” Shane kept pushing, enjoying watching Ryan squirm. “Own it Ryan! Say 'lizard people' out loud!”

“Listen, I am not saying lizard people are real-”

“That sounds like something a lizard person would say,” Shane pointed out. He pointed at himself. “Who knows, maybe I'm a lizard person. Go on, accuse me of being a soul-sucking creature.”

“You're _not_ a soul-sucking creature,” Ryan said. “You're Shane Madej, you sit at the office next to Curly, I see you sometimes when I go get some coffee.”

He shook his head. “We can sit and talk about this all day but regardless the existence of Illuminati shall remain unsolved.”

He shot Shane a look the demon couldn't quite decipher.

He gave the human the most genuine looking gentle smile he could. “We done here?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah I think so. Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

* * *

 

 

And so, the episode was done, Shane recorded some voiceovers a few days later, and that was it.

Except that two weeks from filming the Illuminati episode he found Ryan in front of his desk again.

“What is it? I need to get this text checked out and edited for tomorrow.”

“Listen, I might be needing an another favor.”

Shane looked up from his work. “I'm listening.”

“I think we worked well together.”

“That's nice of you to say. I had fun.”

“The thing is... I might need a bit more help. One more episode.”

“Oh?”

“And it will be a road trip. So if you're really into sleeping in some shitty motels, this is your chance!”

“Oh, how could I resist.”

Ryan sat next to him. He lowered his voice. “Listen, I might have already told them you were up for it. I was planning for this trip with Brent, contacted Buzzfeed Mexico and all, and finally got the permission, I could get someone else but-”

There was a twinge of desperation.

“I did have fun, doing the episode,” Shane told him. He tapped his chin. “So what do you have in mind? Like visiting some famous crime scenes or-”

“No. Not exactly.”

There was a thick wave of fear suddenly emanating from the human. “Supernatural shit.”

“You could come by my apartment,” Shane suggested. “I think the closet door hasn't been quite closing properly. Someone should take a look at it. Might be ghosts.”

“I'm not going to fix your closet door. Is this how you'd be?”

Ryan gave him a look and for the first time Shane wondered about him. Did he suspect anything?

“You'd play the skeptic?”

“Do you want me to?”

“You say you don't believe in ghosts. Right?”

“I don't.”

He wasn't bound to speak the truth but it was always, oh, so much easier. Why believe in ghosts when he _knew_ full well they were real? Although he wasn't quite sure how common they were these days. It might be interesting to visit a haunted (or 'haunted' as it might well be) location or two.

“Oh you will.” Ryan wagged his finger at him. “It's easy to be brave here in the well-lit office. But once we're in a dark forest or a haunted house? Harder to play mister skeptic when you're up to your neck in ectoplasm.”

“I doubt that.”

Shane had been considering playing along and being sufficiently spooked by the ghosts (or the rustling wind) but the challenge shot at him amused the demon.

“Oh we'll see.”

Shane pulled his lips into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I'm sure it will be great television either way.”

* * *

 

For the fraction of a moment, when they stepped inside the church, Shane hesitated. He sat next to Ryan, listening to the priest speak.

“A ghost would refer to a disembodied human soul. A demon is a preternatural angelic creature-”

Shane found himself nodding in agreement before he caught himself.

He was reasonably certain he was well hidden. There was no reason for the priest to suspect anything.

“They're dying, their lifeform has been dying from the moment they rebelled.”

Shane bit his tongue at the grain of truth, determined to let the priest speak. He listened, wondering how many real demons he had actually faced. His guess was most of his cases had been ill, mentally tortured people. Humans were very capable of hurting each other without any demonic interference. _Maybe_ he had faced a weak low-level demon or two. Higher level ones, more sensible ones, like Shane, had very little reason to get caught. He clicked his tongue. Well.

Most of the time.

“And so they're attracted to humans for two reasons-” the priest continued, “one, because they're parasitic and they feed off on our lifeform. But secondly their goal is to take as many of us to Hell as possible.”

_Not everyone cares that much._

Shane supposed it was comfortable for humans to make up huge conspiracies about lizard people or demons who were well-organized and scheming against people to control them and to steal their souls like it was the most important thing in the world. But Shane had to admit some things the priest had said hit uncomfortably close to the truth and maybe if it came to it the priest might have been able to harm him. Although his ability to get Ryan to calm down was more of an annoyance.

Shane watched the priest bless the holy water. The bottle shone with Ryan's belief and Shane instinctively averted his eyes. If Ryan actually suspected anything, and tried to use it against Shane it might actually hurt him.

But that would have necessitated Ryan actually seriously suspecting the man walking next to him in the bright daylight was a demon. Most humans might believe in demons and ghosts but only as an intangible force. Had Shane been in that kind of a form Ryan would have been an actual threat with his little blessed water bottle. Not because Shane would have been weaker but because Ryan would have actually believed he was facing a demon.

Belief was the greatest strength humans had.

“You look confident,” Shane told him.

Ryan shook his bottle at him. “I'm protected now!”

“You gonna get ambushed by a demon?” Shane raised his fingers to his temples, miming horns. “A monster with horns gonna jump at you?”

“No-not really?”

“Like Nightcrawler,” Shane added helpfully. “A Nightcrawler looking motherfucker gonna leap at you and-”

Ryan laughed. “No, I- I uh expect the demons are going to be a bit more subtle.”

“A rustle in the dark. A whimper under the floorboards. In other words wind or some rats that you can use to let your imagination fly free to summon demons.”

“Yeah to be honest I am expecting the evidence we'll gather will be more along the lines of that,” Ryan admitted. “But it will be possibly supernatural! And I might die! I am so nervous I might genuinely die of fear!”

Shane laughed. He patted Ryan on the back, guiding him out of the church. “I'll protect you from any sudden gusts of wind.” He winked. “That's a promise.”

* * *

 

 

Winchester house, their first stop, was completely demon or ghost free, apart from Shane of course. He was slightly interested in this supposed obsession to build the house to avoid death and politely listened to Ryan explaining the backstory to the building. Humans lived for such a short time on this mortal coil, Shane could understand trying to prolong it by any means necessary.

He slightly poked fun at Ryan's fear, but it wasn't until they were in the basement when he couldn't resist making a suggestion.

“I think we should split up.”

Ryan stared at him. “Split up? Have you never seen any horror movies?”

“That's exactly why! We're trying to attract spooky ghouls, or ghosts or whatever. I figure we have much better chances of that if we go in alone.”

Ryan nodded slowly. “I guess you're right. I hate that you're right, but you're right.”

Shane disappeared into the shadows. “See ya!”

He retreated into the darkness, letting it wrap around him. It had been a while since he had let go of this human form, maybe he should..?

For now he kept it, moving silently in the dark labyrinthine basement, only reaching out to the shadows to help him sense the environment. It wasn't sight exactly, more just knowing where everything was, as if he had walked through these tunnels his whole life.

And of course he could feel the two humans in the basement with him. The cameraman following Ryan.

And the delicious fluttering soul of Ryan Bergara.

Shane sneaked closer, following him in the dark. He could just leap at him from the shadows-

But that would have carried the risk of exposure.

He wasn't about to risk that. Not quite yet anyway. Creating a new fake identity was more and more of a pain in modern human society. He was planning to keep being Shane Madej for at least a few years more.

So he stayed in human form and let the sound of his footsteps carry in the dark basement.

Even with him no longer making any supernatural effort to hide he got very close before Ryan spotted him.

“AAAH! OH GOD A-”

“Hey man, calm down!” Shane laughed.

“You piece of shit Shane!”

Shane stepped a bit closer. “My mike went out.” He reached in close pretending to show him his mike, breathing in deep the human's fear.

“I just wanted to say hello to you!”

Ryan stepped away from him.

“You almost scared me to death. I'm never gonna forgive you for that.”

Shane shrugged. “Eh. Well.”

_Could have been worse._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Next up was the island of the haunted dolls. Shane decided to keep playing the skeptic, it was making Ryan annoyed and every wave of annoyance and anger directed at him was almost as sweet as his fear. He did decide to play up his fear of the spiders though. Wouldn't want to come across as too brave. Shane poked a doll. Dolls did get possessed sometimes. That much was true. He breathed in deep and reached out to the shadows. Nothing.

Ghosts were usually very weak and barely sentient, if they in fact were around, and would only able to manifest via life force or magic sucked from living people. Or demons.

A witch _might_ have been able to summon one. Shane wondered if the man who had made the doll island had been a witch or just someone with a weird hobby. He wondered if there were still witches...

* * *

 

 

They stood in front of the Sallie house. So far their trip had come up empty, evidence wise. But Shane was sure Ryan could edit together something out of the footage they had gathered. Humans did get freaked out by dolls anyway and at the very least you had footage of two clueless Americans wandering in Mexico.

Ratings gold right there.

“Everyone thinks feeling energy is bullshit but...” Ryan looked at him. “You don't feel strange at all? Even a little bit?”

“No. Not really.”

The house was completely normal. Perfectly unhaunted so it was likely Ryan would have as much luck here as in the two previous places. Part of Shane was disappointed.

But Ryan's fear was so palpable, when he told Shane he was terrified of demons. When he clutched his bottle of holy water.

When he jumped at every creak.

It was just so fucking _funny_.

“Demons!” Shane called out and he knew he couldn't hold back his grin.

And when Ryan put down the flashlight he just couldn't resist.

“We met a pal named Father Thomas, and he told us not to talk to you, but I think you guys are swell-”

“You're fucking crazy Shane.”

Ryan smiled and Shane could feel the edge of his fear disappearing.

_Well. Time to fix that._

Out loud, he spoke: “If you _don't_ like us, turn it on.”

He nudged the flashlight ever so lightly with his powers.

The screams filling the room were _delicious._

Now Shane was having fun. Maybe a bit too much.

The taste of Ryan's fear was almost coppery on his tongue and he kept pushing harder.

“Oh that's good let's feed it more!” Ryan quipped. “Why not, he's hungry!”

_You have no idea._

He hadn't had a feast this great since the improv class event.

That was why he ended up laying on the remains of the supposed pentagram.

“If you wanna eat my heart, turn the light on!”

A delicious idea sneaked to his mind. “If you want to eat _Ryan's_ heart-”

“Don't drag me into your shit!”

_Too late for that._

This wasn't something Shane had prepared for and maybe he was having a bit too much fun when he spoke: “Good old Ryan Bergara, we're a package deal!”

The thought of Ryan just wandering into a contract with a demon was just so utterly delicious he couldn't hold himself back. He was making a show of it now. Something was flowing in the air and even the cameraman could feel it.

“Turn it off for Ryan's sake.”

That snapped Shane out of it. He had gone too far. Too close to being exposed.

Not that it was a problem. The worst came to it he could just get rid of them.

He laughed. A human laugh, he made sure.

The right number of teeth.

“It's all bullshit. We're gonna sleep in this house,” he reminded Ryan.

He didn't believe Ryan would go through with it, but he was really planning to, despite radiating such wonderful terror.

Ryan nudged his sleeping bag closer to Shane. “I'm moving closer to you, I don't even care.”

Part of Shane was amused at that. But an even a bigger part of him was _offended._

It didn't make sense to get annoyed, he told himself, after all he had been doing a good enough job that the human suspected nothing. To the extent he sought _him_ out for comfort.

The thought made Shane a bit nauseous.

He thought of doing something. Maybe making the light fixture explode. But that would have been too much at this point and he was already so annoyed with Ryan and his clinginess he just wanted to get this over with and let the three minutes pass and only lightly mocked him when he gave up.

“Fuck you!”

Shane was taken aback. “Did you just call the demon a motherfucker?”

“I don't care I'm gone!” Ryan collected his things. “Go fuck yourself, Sallie house. You were truly awful. And I hate you.”

Shane shook his head. He watched Ryan walk away, the feeling of happiness and relief washing over him, as bitter and dry as the sweet fear had been.

Shane followed him, and the smile on his face was decidedly fake. Not that anyone could tell.

Still. This had been _fun_.

And little Ryan Bergara had shown himself a bit more resilient than Shane had supposed.

He wondered how beautifully his mind could break.

What would it take?

Well, that was one mystery he was fully equipped to solve.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Are you okay, buddy?” TJ asked Ryan, hurrying after him. He had been waiting in the car outside but ran to Ryan as soon as he made his shaky way out of the Sallie house.

Ryan looked at him. “What? No. Just tired.” He stood a bit straighter and fiddled with his camera.

“You haven't really gotten enough sleep-”

“Neither of us did,” Shane mumbled.

 _No, act more worried_.

Shane set his hand on Ryan's shoulder. “You worried us.”

Ryan twitched.

The stroke of fear pulsing through him almost drove Shane into a frenzy.

_I could sink my claws into him._

_Show him true terror._

_**Drink him dry.** _

Shane closed his eyes and pulled his hand away, slowly and deliberately.

 _No. Not right now_.

“Sorry. Just tired.” Ryan let out a hysterical laugh. “It's fine. Should we-”

“It was great!” Shane told him, pushing every single ounce of his power as deep into his being as he could. “With some editing you got a great ending! The brave little ghost hunter running back home because faulty electronic appliances got to him. Such a funny anti-climax. I love it!”

“Haha yeah,” Ryan nodded. His laughter was obviously fake. He opened the car door.

“Listen, you're not in any condition to drive!” TJ said. “I or Shane can-”

“I can't drive,” Shane said. “What? Never had the need to.”

“I'm fine,” Ryan argued.

“Listen,” Shane told him. “I agree you dying horribly in a car crash after this would make for some great television-slash-an-urban legend, but I'm not too keen on you taking me with you.”

Ryan rubbed his forehead. “I just want to get out of here.”

“You're exhausted. All of us are. I'm not feeling too great myself. I'll call a taxi,” TJ told them. He pulled out his phone and walked off.

“There was no demon in that house,” Shane told Ryan.

“Shut the fuck up Shane.” There was no mirth in his voice. “You really don't- You really didn't sense anything?”

“I did not.”

“Sorry, I am just tired.” He pointed at Shane's camera. “Can we _not_.”

“No no. No sorry. I think I left the asshole skeptic role on for a bit.” Shane turned the camera off and tried a gentle tone. “You got some evidence, didn't you?”

“I wasn't... I do believe in ghosts but. Not like that.”

“It wasn't a ghost.”

“A demon. I know you think this is bullshit but I felt _something_. All around me. In that basement. It was cold and ancient and _hungry_. And you- You just waltzed right in there and-”

“Listen, you will feel better in the morning,” Shane told him.

He put his hand on Ryan's shoulder again. This time he made sure to pull all of his dark power away from the human.

Ryan didn't flinch away this time.

 

* * *

 

 

“I have been going through the footage all day,” Ryan told Shane.

“Found any demons? The devil hanging out in the background with a pitchfork?”

Ryan sat across him in the small office room. “You. Are unbelievable.”

“I try my best.”

“I do admit I feel a bit less. A bit less jumpy now. It's harder to see demons in the broad daylight-”

“I sense a 'but'.”

“BUT I'm just more convinced it really was something. Even TJ felt something!”

“It was some bad chicken.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“So. A ghost spiked his chicken dinner?” Shane stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I _do_ believe _you_ believe you sensed something.”

Ryan gave him a look.

“No. Genuinely,” Shane told him. “I'm curious. What was it like?”

“I don't know it was like this abyss choking me. It was. I felt it was. Connected to things, you know? Like it wanted me? Like it was aware of me. That's what was the horrifying bit. Being _noticed_.”

“OK. I mean, I have heard of these sort of experiences.”

“There was something fucked up in that house Shane.”

“Mmhmm.”

Shane reached out to comb through Ryan's feelings. Here in the bright office Ryan didn't even notice the demon's power brushing at his soul and mind. He seemed rattled but there was a new kind of determination burning inside of him now.

Especially when he finally spoke: “I _did_ believe. But. I have had supernatural experiences before. Or _an_ experience. But it wasn't like this.”

“You seem rattled.”

“I know you don't believe in this shit but I...”

“Do you think something followed you home?”

Ryan looked Shane in the eye. “No.”

“Oh?”

“What, did you want me to-”

“No I just figured, it might be. It's a bit of a trope you know. We could make it part of the episode. ' After the events I had nightmares for weeks. Now I see spooky dead people'.”

“I'm not going to lie for the show Shane.”

“Sorry, didn't mean to imply anything. Just, you know it would be perfectly expected for you to have had some nightmares after an ordeal like that, and it's something some of our viewers would have found possibly interesting. That's all I meant.”

“I slept like a baby.”

“Really.”

“I did make a salt circle around my bed.”

“A-ha.”

“But Shane, if we're going to keep working together I want to make something abundantly clear. I will _not_ fake evidence. I admit some of it might not be the best, not the most convincing, but I will appreciate you there. I know some of it is questionable, and I think presenting the different sides is good.”

“Yeah.”

“I will feel better presenting some of this stuff if it's- If some of my bigger leaps in logic are called out, you know?”

“I got you.”

“Don't get me wrong, I will prove you wrong eventually.” Ryan smiled. “Ghosts are real.”

“Sure. Looking forward to that.”

“Anyway we gotta film some of the voiceovers, banter.”

 

* * *

 

“I keep going through the files on the Sallie house. On the thing that haunted that place. It was documented in so many ways!” Ryan explained.

Shane wondered if the place had been genuinely haunted by a demon at some time. If so any trace of it was long gone by now. Out loud he said:

“It does genuinely, to me, sound like the psychic did some digging, found out about a woman named 'Sallie' living in the house at some point, and then used the story to 'feel' a presence. Fake!”

“Yeah, but imagine you're a demon-”

“Okay, imagining. Wait, visualizing horns...”

Shane closed his eyes and waved his hands dramatically.

“You're done?” Ryan deadpanned.

“Getting into character.” Shane wiggled his fingers towards Ryan, careful to keep any dark power inside him. “Wah wah wah, gimme your soooul!”

Ryan laughed. “I think you might have been going for some kinda -Count Dracula impression there but I gotta tell you, it did come out as more of a 'Waluigi'.”

“Nyaaah, gimme your soul Waario, my brother!”

“Waluigi and Wario aren't actually brothers,” Ryan informed him.

Shane squinted. “They're not?”

“I don't... Think so? Granted I am not the most well versed in the Mario lore but also I refuse to be Wario.”

“Yeah you're more of a Luigi.”

“Shut up. Why are we having this conversation?”

“I think you were trying to make the case the demon in the Sallie house was actually Waluigi.”

“I was not!”

“Well, it could have been,” Shane pointed out. “I mean your argument is it just pretended to be a little girl to- I don't know. For fun? Why not just be Waluigi in that case-”

“Nonono. Demons don't appear as adults.”

“Why not?” Shane frowned. “I mean you keep saying that but-”

“They gotta look innocent. Don't want to arouse suspicion.”

“So no Waluigi then.”

“No! Take this seriously!”

“I mean, if I was a demon I would just look like a completely normal human being. Who would you rather follow into a dark alley, a spooky little girl, or say me, a completely normal human man?”

Ryan wheezed. “Neither.”

“Really? How about Waluigi? Let's say there were three alleys with a little girl in a white dress, me, and Waluigi, all motioning at you to come closer-”

“Waluigi,” Ryan stated without hesitation.

“Also I am bleeding and dying.”

“In that case I am just going to run away,” Ryan told him.

“And leaving me to die?”

“Yeah!”

“My point is though- I forgot what my point was- Oh yes- that the demon could surely just present itself any way it likes.”

“I find it hard to believe any demon would choose to look like Waluigi though. Or like _you_. Which, now that I think about it. Same thing.”

Shane smiled. “The Sallie house; actually haunted by Waluigi. Solved.”

“Yeah. Great. Let's put that into the episode.” Ryan looked at the camera. “We're not being paid by Nintendo. This is not a part of some-”

“It could be though.” Shane made a 'call me' hand-sign. “Call us. I will promise perfect product placement. Imagine. Every unsolved mystery. We suggest Waluigi as the culprit.”

“We are going to have to cut this bit out.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I want you to know, the Waluigi bit ended up on the cutting room floor. I know you were very proud of it.” Ryan pulled the chair next to Shane's spot and sat down.

“Oh well as long as it annoyed you I'm happy,” Shane told him, shaking the empty teacup at Ryan.

Of course it hadn't. Not genuinely. Except maybe at the end. Shane was starting to regret dropping it. It might have been fun dragging it out as long as he could to see how far he could push Ryan.

He filed that to the back of his mind for later.

“What can I say? I suffer for my art.”

The emotions Shane sensed were conflicting and confusing. Probably just stress.

“For truth,” Shane said. It wasn't really said in a mocking tone and he only realized it when it came out of his mouth.

He _had_ been more of an asshole with Ryan than he usually was with people.

The man made it so easy.

“You were happy with my performance? Just checking. That I didn't go overboard. Made you uncomfortable or anything.”

“No, you were great. Anyway, I've been doing research on demons, and ended up looking into this other case. A possession.” Ryan pulled out his phone. “Anneliese Michel.”

“Never heard.”

“I looked into a bunch of cases and figured. Why not make this into an episode. Since I did the research. So.” He stood up. “I'll call you later. To schedule things.”

Shane nodded.

It only occurred to him after Ryan left that he had seemingly agreed to an another episode.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Ryan looked into the camera. “So we're about to discuss a case of demonic possession so chilling and controversial that it actually became the movie _The exorcism of Emily Rose._ What follows is the true story that inspired that, the exorcism of Anneliese Michel.”

Shane exaggerated shivering. “Hooo...”

“It's one of the few like, actual demonic possessions that went to court,” Ryan explained.

“Alright. Wait did they like sue the demon?”

“You'll find out.”

Shane lifted an eyebrow at the weird vibe he got from Ryan. “OK.”

He had expected he'd continue the back-and-forth, maybe expand the thing about suing demons into a bit, but instead the human dropped the subject and moved on.

Weird. Maybe he wanted to add more banter in post.

Shane nodded as he listened to Ryan. He had expected him to be more carefree based on their previous videos, but something was different now. Especially compared to his behavior in the Illuminati episode Ryan was on edge in a bizarre way.

He was taking this seriously.

Shane wasn't sure what was expected of him now.

The whole mood had changed, and Ryan wouldn't set him up for jokes the way Shane expected.

Ryan described the case, and Shane found it difficult to focus.

Great. Now _he_ was getting uncomfortable.

Possession.

It freaked him out.

“What year was this?” he asked.

“This was in 1969.”

“Okay, I'm fine with that so far, that sounds real.”

Ryan laughed, his tension broken for the first time since they sat on the park bench.

Shane on the other hand was finding it increasingly harder to keep it together. In the late 1960's to 70's... That was when he had been-

Against his will Shane let some of his discomfort shine through as the buried memories flooded his mind.

_-raised hands and it wasn't alone and it burned and she pulled out her hair as the pain pain pain-_

He swallowed.

He was pretty sure Ryan was shooting him a suspicious look now. There was no way he was hiding it now it was all over and-

No. He hadn't shifted, it had just been a moment of confusion.

Just a moment's lapse.

And it was fine, this kind of a case was disturbing, right? It'd be normal for a human to act weird.

He hid his twitch the best way he could think of in the moment:

“Spiders on me, sorry if I blew it on ya.”

The possibility of a spider at least distracted Ryan long enough for the demon to gather himself. He focused on his surroundings. His body. The body that was his. Was _him_. The feel of his clothes on his back, the wire of the mike running uncomfortably on his skin, the park bench under him, the warm sunlight in his hair, the dusty air in his lungs. Breathing. That was something he should be doing.

“Shane?”

The demon blinked (also a good idea), for a second not recognizing the name.

He smiled, shaking his head. “Sorry, it's just... Poor kid!”

“Yeah it's a lot. I hate demons.”

“You don't know it was a demon,” Shane pointed out. He wasn't too sure himself. Lot of the things fit a case of genuine possession, but who knew.

He rather didn't think about it right now.

The memory of the cacophony of thought and being burned by the vessel's soul-

He just wanted this to be over now.

He reached out to Ryan in the hopes of finding sweet, nourishing, fear. Instead his senses were overwhelmed by the human's sharp salty discomfort... And even stronger steely determination.

_He really hates this case too but is determined to push through. Is he fascinated by it even?_

Without warning, Ryan pulled out his phone and the distorted speech in German filled the sunny Californian air.

Guttural, growling human voice of the supposedly possessed girl. Was it all human?

_No way of knowing. Was there someone in her mind there?_

_Was it someone I knew?_

A weak little thing trapped in the body of a child.

Not something he would have to worry about ever again. He got things under control. Somehow the steely resolve radiating from the human sparked his own. He had put so much effort into building this life he'd hang onto it for a decade or even two longer. He had backstory! He had worldbuilding!

No voices in his head but his own!

He wasn't going to lose to- whatever this was.

_Focus._

_Focus, Shane Alexander Madej._

“You know... She's screaming.” Objectively true. “She's giving it 110%”

“I mean do you think that sounds like it came out of a girl, like?” Ryan asked.

“Yes, it sounds like a girl doing a funny voice!”

He imitated the voice on the tape: “We're all here! It's all- uh I ran out of evil people to think of-”

_That's good, mock the whole thing, turn it into a bit-_

“-the blonde man from _Die Hard_ is also in here!”

He babbled about Skeletor. Heath Ledger's Joker. Things Shane Madej would know. These were the kind of things he'd reference.

Even if he shouldn't understand German.

Shane Madej didn't speak any other languages except English and some rudimentary Spanish. It was one of the things he had established before oh fuck what did he know about-

“What's a brain scientist? What do you call those?”

“A neurologist?” Ryan suggested.

Shit, he was out of it.

“Sorry it's been a long day,” Shane offered Ryan a tired smile.

He would need to recuperate. He shouldn't have let this affect him this much.

“Don't take your kid to an exorcist!”

“You're acting a bit weird,” Ryan said. “You sure you're not in a need of a little holy water bath yourself?”

“Are you asking me if I should be carted off to a- to a Jesuit so they can do their little tricks- Pull out their rosaries, I don't even know- Get me to Father Thomas-”

“A little exorcism on the go?”

“Oh just a light little exorcism?” Shane spat out. “Just a little bit of tying me to a bed? Not gonna bring out the big guns just lightly tap the demons out of me? Just a tiny bit of 'let's see how long we can keep him without food I'm sure the demons will eventually crawl out of his mouth when the vessel starts to die of starvation.'”

He could tell the banter had gone well over the line to the unfunny side of morbid but he didn't quite care at this point.

Ryan held his hands up. “No need to get upset over it-”

“I'm not upset.”

He hadn't planned on sounding angry.

“You oka-”

“Yes,” Shane interrupted him. “I'm okay. I'm perfectly okay listening to this. Just tired, okay. And I'm overusing the word okay- Can we- can we wrap this up?”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Let's. And afterwards we can go get something to eat.”

Shane nodded. “Sounds great.”

However, after the filming, as Ryan was talking to TJ, Shane took his chance and left, disappearing to the back alleys.

He kept walking.

_Go through everything. Every single thing I have established. Every single thing that I have to keep in mind every day I go to work and sit at the office next to humans._

He pulled out his phone. Going through his contact information helped him remember. Curly. TJ. Daysha. Sara. Devon. Ryan. By now he had the contact information of pretty much everyone who worked at the office. Still, he was close to none of them. All the texts were about work. Once he'd leave his job at Buzzfeed it'd be easy to cut all ties and start anew somewhere else. Maybe he'd do it right now? Keep being Shane Madej but just move. Get a new job.

It was certainly a plan.

And it would leave Ryan in trouble which was a nice bonus.

 

* * *

 

 

_Are you okay?_

Shane stared at the text from TJ.

_Yeah. Just it had been a long day._

Sent.

Shane sat back on the pile of old pillows on his apartment. Apart from them and a pile of DVD-players and game consoles connected to an old TV in a jumble of cables that was probably a fire hazard, his tiny one-room apartment was empty. No need for a bed. Or a working kitchen.

The body he was using at the moment was a very good approximation of a human one but no need to get fancy. If you could get along without food or sleep why wouldn't you?

Food was just expensive and sleeping would cut on his research time.

He was just about to start his marathon of _Jurassic Park_ series when his phone beeped again.

Shane groaned. Ryan.

_have you seen the Youtube comments? at all?_

_Yes, but I didn't really think it was worth my time_ , he texted back. He had checked out the Illuminati video but hadn't been interested enough to do more than skim through the most popular comments.

_They're Youtube comments, Ryan._

He nevertheless pulled the video up and scrolled down.

_lmao, why do I watch these at 3 AM??? now i'm gonna think there's a snake guy under my bed_

Shane stared at the comment. Probably the writer had felt fear but none of it came through to him.

_I'm a ilmulninati clone_

Insightful.

An another beep.

_They like you._

They did, Shane supposed. There certainly were more likes than dislikes and he hadn't seen any outright negative comments about himself but he wasn't really in the mood of wading through Youtube comments from people he had never even met.

 _I don't have much interest in the social media_ , he told Ryan truthfully. He had kept his accounts on Twitter and Instagram up, but they were mostly random pictures and existed to give him an online presence of some kind to avoid looking completely suspicious. Interaction online lacked the actual connection terrorizing people face-to-face did so all the comments might just as well have been from bots for how many emotions he sensed from them.

 _Yea. i saw your Twitter It's literally just a list of TV shows you've seen You watch a lot of TV,_ Ryan texted.

_Unfair! Sometimes I play video games._

Shane typed: _What do you want?_

His finger hovered over the phone screen, ready to send the message.

Of course he knew what Ryan wanted. He was in need of a co-host.

He didn't send the message.

* * *

 

 

Shane stared at his phone. More specifically on Ryan's contact information. He had practiced the speech in his mind for over the weekend. He would sound suitably distressed, and maybe make small talk until Ryan asked him what was wrong.

_I've been thinking about it, Ryan, the case. It stayed with me, ya know? Some of these things will just stick to you and I don't know if I can just keep on cracking jokes about this shit._

And then... Would Ryan try to convince him to stay as a co-host? Shane could remind him he had never really agreed for this to be permanent.

Could Ryan get Brent back? Not likely. This would probably mean the end for the show unless he changed the format. So Ryan might try to convince him out of desperation.

Would an e-mail be better?

It felt easier somehow. He'd rather avoid dealing with Ryan's emotions at all when he told him.

He could even just disappear. There was something amusing about just doing that. Leave Ryan an unsolved mystery. A nice little parting gift, even. Fly away, let Shane Madej disappear for good, be a bird for a while, claim a nice pond until he forgot the shape of this face... Feed off of whatever fell in the water for a decade or two...

But he had been doing so well.

_I could just right up and possess someone._

The thought was an intrusive needle prick to his mind. Why was he thinking about it now?

He wasn't going to do that again.

But he was _thinking_ about it-

Shane snapped the phone case shut. Ryan and his stupid show was getting to him and he wasn't sure why. Did Ryan suspect anything?

Ryan Bergara.

An ignorant little thing who saw ghosts around every corner, demons in every shadow.

An idiot. Who had managed to hit the needle in the haystack and actually make contact with a demon.

And he didn't even realize it!

Not yet anyway.

Shane opened his phone again. He hated the idea of abandoning this little train wreck but... Maybe this whole thing was a risk he couldn't afford.

What if Ryan _did_ find demons?

Were there demons in the world anymore? Apart from him?

It had been so long since Shane had last met others of his kind. Back when he had been new to LA he had reached out with his power regularly, convinced he'd find fellow demons hiding amongst humanity. But no.

_There must be others._

_And Bergara will stumble upon them eventually._

Maybe it was worth it staying with this show for a while longer.

He typed a message.

_Wow they really do dig what I bring to the show_

Sent.

After a moment's contemplation he asked: _Any ideas for the next episode?_

Instead of answering his question Ryan replied: w _e were thinking of going out for drinks. want to come?_

It was probably a good idea. He should try to act friendly with the guy if he was going along with this.

_Sure._

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Shane had made it a habit to take part of these sort of outings every now and then when people at work would invite him. And he was great at socializing. An excellent listener. It was a wonder just how little you had to say about yourself if you remembered to make sympathetic comments every now and then.

He nodded at whatever Curly had said. “Hmmhmm. I get what you mean.”

“Yeaah, it's a shame, isn't it?”

Shane took a sip of his beer, largely to avoid letting it show he hadn't been listening at all. He swallowed the liquid. While he had no need for food never eating was something humans tended to notice. It was a pain though, even if he had somehow gotten used to the large amounts of tea he consumed at work.

“So, come _oon_ , tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Shane tried to remember how many beers he had drank. This was probably his third? He could pretend to be drunk if Curly started to suspect anything.

Curly tented his fingers. “You usually get along with everyone.”

Shane gave him a lopsided smile. “What can I say? I'm an easy-going type of guy.”

“Hmm, you are.”

He had that look on his face again Shane hated. The kind of look that implied he was about to try to get to know him. Some time ago he had already not-so-sneakily attempted to find out things about Shane's past romantic life or what his 'type' was. Shane had back then taken great pleasure in giving him absolutely no information whatsoever. It had been like a game; running metaphorical circles around the human, saying really nothing, while always leading the discussion back to Curly's love life (of which Shane had learned far more than he cared to).

As far as humans went Curly was okay though. He sat next to Shane at the office and was a reliable food source. Shane would take off some of that extra workload from him, and in return pop up at midnight to only slightly terrorize him and feed off of his fear. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

But now his attempts at bonding only annoyed Shane. And he wasn't quite sure why. Usually he just shrugged all of this off.

“Wait, are you trying to imply something...”

Shane looked up and his gaze found Ryan, talking to TJ at the other side of the bar.

_Did he say anything about me?_

Ryan glanced in his direction and Shane avoided his eyes.

Curly made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat.

“I have no problem with Bergara if that's what you're asking,” Shane told him.

He didn't want to get into a feud or anything like that with anyone. Those only complicated matters.

There was maybe some kind of an uneasiness there with Ryan but it would probably just go away as soon as they got back to work.

“Maybe he was shaken...” Curly said. “Bad energy followed him home.”

Shane lowered his voice dramatically. “Bad vibes.”

“Stop it, it's real!” Curly leaned on his hand. “You know, sometimes I feel like I have attracted something... Sometimes, at night, when I look at the mirrors and it's dark my face is all wrong, and I get spooked.”

_I know. It's hilarious._

Out loud, Shane said: “I do believe you felt... 'spooked' as you say but there are other explanations than... What? Demons? Ghosts? Like... Gases.”

Curly laughed. “Gases? What?”

Shane waved his hand. “Like... CO2 or something. Noxious gases.”

Curly only laughed harder. “Stop it.”

* * *

 

 

By now the evening was at the stage where people were leaving in smaller groups and as per usual Shane was left alone.

Until Ryan sat next to him.

Ryan fiddled with his empty class. “Listen, I just wanted to know... Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?”

“I maybe. Shouldn't have played the recording without warning,” Ryan admitted.

“No, you shouldn't have.”

“I am going to put in a warning in the actual episode.”

“Do that.” Shane gave him a smile. “Listen, I was tired that day. No hard feelings, right?” He nudged Ryan with his elbow. “We good?”

“Yes.”

Shane could sense something was wrong. Ryan certainly looked sleep deprived.

“So what kinda freaky happenings we're unsolving next? Aliens? The Loch Ness monster? Spooky ghosts?”

“I don't know.”

“Are _you_ okay?”

Ryan shot him a look. “Yes.”

An obvious lie.

“Cool.”

Shane sighed.

“We are going to keep doing this, right? Ryan, I sort of need to know sooner rather than later?”

“Of course! I just got to think.”

“Have you gotten much sleep lately?”

“I look that bad right?”

Shane shrugged. “You are starting to look slightly undead. If you keep this up we might actually be able to just drag you to the studio, point a camera at you, and get video evidence of the walking dead.”

“Hmm.”

This wasn't good. Ryan looked like he was all but ready to give up. Or not? Shane couldn't quite read what was going on. He was always better at picking up some emotions than the others... Fear with all of its wonderful variations were always the strongest to him, of course, but he was capable of sensing others too even if they held less interest to him. But the emotions emanating from Ryan were a confusing mess.

However some hints were obvious even to human senses.

“You're drunk,” he stated.

“Maybe.”

“Can you get home? I'll-”

Ryan shook his head. “I don't want to go home.” He ran his fingers through his increasingly messy hair. “Don't tell Helen.”

“Can you go to a... Hotel? Stay with any of your friends?”

“Maybe I should go to a hotel. Maybe it won't... Maybe I can sleep there.”

Shane looked around the bar, trying to locate any of their coworkers. Ryan seemed to notice.

“Let's not make a big deal out of this, I'm just...”

Shane pulled out his phone. “I'll get you to a hotel.”

“My car-”

“You're drunk,” Shane said. “I'll drive.”

Ryan nodded, clearly too exhausted to argue.

* * *

 

By the time they got to the cheap hotel Ryan was almost falling asleep.

“You were there. Sorry...” Ryan mumbled.

Shane all but lifted Ryan onto the bed. “Okay, here you go.”

It only now occurred to him maybe Ryan was in actual trouble. Humans died pretty easily.

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“No...” Ryan groaned. “I just need to sleep it off.”

“Okay.”

Shane had the vague feeling you were supposed to make sure someone who was drunk wouldn't choke on their vomit. He briefly considered pulling his sneakers off but Ryan was already falling asleep.

So Shane sat on a chair across the room.

In the dark hotel room, he reached to the shadows and called upon them, partly leaning into the darkness.

In this state he could sense more clearly what was going on. He ignored the tantalizing feel of the numerous souls in the building and focused on the one on the bed. There was an undercurrent of anxiety. Fear. But something was off.

He pushed against the soul and Ryan let out a squeak in his sleep. Shane retreated. But there was something calling to him- He tried again, this time slower, more gently.

And there, lodged into Ryan's soul, was a shard of demonic power.

Shane's power.

_Fuck._

He hadn't meant this to happen.

He extended his essence from his physical body, letting his shadow fill the room and loom over the sleeping human. Carefully, he inched closer and reached out his talons to tug at it. The shining human soul pulsated and wrapped itself around the sharp dark thing almost possessively. Shane insisted, pulling at the part of himself-

Ryan's eyes snapped open and he screamed.

Shane pulled out fully, and retreated back to his physical form. He scrambled up in his human body. “Wait wait wait, it's okay...”

This had the completely opposite of the intended effect and Ryan only screamed louder.

Shane had forgotten the room was still dark. He flipped the light switch.

“Madej?”

“Yeah, it's just me. You remember where we are?”

Ryan looked around and eventually nodded. “The hotel.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell anyone? That you were...” Shane made a vague gesture with his hand.

“I thought it was stupid. I was stupid, going into that fucking house.”

Shane took a careful step towards the human. This didn't seem to trigger any fight or flight response. Good.

“Ryan. I believe you are going through some shit, okay? Obviously, I saw you just wake up screaming.”

Ryan rubbed his forehead. “I haven't been able to sleep in days. I keep sensing this... _Something._.. Never fuck with demons...”

Shane narrowed his eyes. This hadn't been fully his fault. He had tried to break the link but Ryan had held onto it. “You did though.” He didn't even care if it came out as an accusation.

“You were in that house too. I know... I know you don't believe but... I don't know what I thought.”

Did he suspect anything?

Shane sat next to him on the bed. “Listen, I'm sorry I made fun of you.”

_What should I do? I can't let this go on._

“This is your fault,” Ryan interrupted his train of thought.

“How come?”

“You invited that thing in.”

“Then let me help fix this.” Shane stood up. “Come on.”

“Come on what?”

“We're going to get you an exorcism.”

 

* * *

 

 

It hadn't taken too long for them to find a church (an Universalist one, it turned out) open early in the morning.

The minister hasn't even been as surprised as Shane had expected as he had walked into the church with Ryan in tow and announced he was shopping for an exorcism for his buddy.

“We don't really do those but I can pray with you.”

And so Shane had left Ryan there and all but fled.

It had taken all of his willpower to stop just outside the building.

And so he waited.

Eventually Ryan walked out.

“Oh thank God you're here.”

“What? Did you think I ran away?” Shane didn't give Ryan the chance to answer. “How are you feeling now?”

Whatever the minister had done hadn't helped with their little problem at all. Shane inspected Ryan's soul and in the morning light the human's soul was far less jumpy and let him closer. But it still didn't let go of the demon's power.

Ryan nodded. “I think I feel better now. Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

He needed Ryan to believe. Maybe he required something fancier with Crucifixes and chanting and sage-burning. Or perhaps...

“Back in the Sallie house... What do you think there was? What do you think happened?”

_Why did you go there? Why are you doing any of this?_

“You're not going to believe me,” Ryan said.

“I am going to believe that you felt things. Go on. I won't laugh, if it helps.”

“That house was evil. It was infested. It told us it didn't want us in that house so I guess something attached itself to me.”

“Why would it do that if it wanted you out anyway? Do you think it wanted to hang out with you?”

“I don't know! I'm not a demon!”

_Well, I am._

He had been careless back there. But Ryan got it wrong. Shane had only teased the human. It had been Ryan who had attached himself to him.

The man who was afraid of ghosts and even more terrified of demons.

He had unconsciously called out to a demon.

And was actively hanging onto the link they now shared even as it ate away at his mind.

Maybe he was into some kinky shit.

“You wanted evidence of supernatural. But then you kept it from everyone. Can't say I really follow your logic here.”

“You think people would actually believe this? You're not really believing this isn't just in my head. And like I said, it was... We were told not to do it but we did anyway.”

Was he worth all this trouble? Shane had made his decision to keep doing the show in the hopes of maybe finding something real but he didn't need Ryan.

_But if anyone can find demons it's probably Ryan Bergara._

He had to cut the half-formed contract though. It had been ages since Shane had done any pacts with wanna be witches but being bound to a human wasn't on his to-do list any time soon.

He tried to pull away one last time but Ryan's soul only hang onto him tighter.

Shane thought back to the events in the Sallie house.

Him laying on the dark stain on the floor that might have once been a pentagram.

Announcing: “We're a package deal!”

He had offered himself up and Ryan had accepted it, consciously or not. But that hadn't been all.

He had already entered a vague pact with the human at that point.

He had offered Ryan something and he had willingly entered a contract.

He had to break _that_ up.

Shane looked Ryan into the eye. “I don't want to do the show anymore.”

A shock ran through Ryan. “Why? You're good at it.”

“I shouldn't have to explain myself to you.”

“Fair.”

Shane could feel the tugging at the bond. If this didn't work he might have to just resort to tearing it away. It would probably destroy Ryan's mind but-

“Okay,” Ryan said. “It's fine. I get it.”

And just like that the bond was gone.

Shane smiled. “How are you feeling now? Should I get you to a hotel or a hospital or should we try a different religion or-”

“I feel better. I think the exorcism really helped.”

“That's the- no that's a dumb pun.”

“Go on, gimme your terrible puns I could use feeling like the smartest person in this conversation right now.”

“I was about to say 'that's the spirit' but...”

“There goes the spirit.” Ryan gave him an exhausted but genuine smile. “This is the level of my comedic talent after weeks of sleepless nights.”

He yawned.

“Well you're demon energy free, baby! And that's all that matters now.”

“Thanks bro, I really appreciate this all.”

“That's what bros are for. Getting exorcisms for each other at... 7 AM, apparently.”

 

* * *

 

 

“We need to talk.”

They had both avoided each other for days. But the bond was gone and Shane was all ready to move on. So Shane all but pulled Ryan into one of the sound booths. He probably wouldn't want to talk about this where everyone could hear them.

First things first. Make sure Ryan was still going to be breathing next week. “Listen, you're okay, right?”

“I've slept well. The nightmares stopped.”

He did look better now. Still slightly sleep deprived but Shane was starting to suspect it was his default setting.

“Do you know why I asked to be let go of the show?”

Ryan gave him a defeated smile. “I get it. Can't imagine it was that fun for you.”

“Nonono I had fun. I had a lot of fun!”

Ryan shot him a look. “Listen, at some point you gotta just admit it is you.”

“Huh?”

“You're not the first co-host to leave. At least you had the decency to tell it to me to my face. No, that's unfair. Brent had his reasons too-”

“Still an asshole thing to do, leaving like that. But you don't get it, I wasn't sure if it was fun for _you_. I didn't want to make you do the show if it was torture for you!”

“Oh!”

“Ryan, I'm not a monster. You were having weird nightmares and shit. I worried about you, pal.”

This earned him a disbelieving stare from Ryan. “Wait, so you actually _want_ to do it? You wanna do Unsolved?”

Shane nodded. “Absolutely, baby! Need to get those mysteries solved! Or at least out there. People gotta be informed of all the unsolved shit out there. Get them all intrigued of the life's great mysteries. Like how some people can be dumb enough to believe in ghosts. But we could maybe go back to non ghostly mysteries. For a bit.”

Ryan nodded but to Shane's relief he didn't reach out to his power again. “Yeah well I don't think we have really the budget for running across the country every other week anyway.”

This wasn't optimal. However-

“Who knows! Maybe eventually we will go back to ghost hunting business! Bag ourselves a ghoul or two!” Shane decided to push him. “Even go back to the Sallie house for round two with her.”

“No, absolutely not.”

Terror. And yet-

Underneath that there was an undercurrent of something. It took a while for Shane to differentiate it from his own feelings but there it was.

Something very much like _hunger._

Interesting.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

This time it had been Ryan who had approached Shane and unceremoniously pulled him into one of the voiceover booths.

“We have to stop meeting like this!” Shane grinned.

“Hmh.”

Ryan rubbed his forehead. “I need to submit the possession episode for final review soon or... I could have replaced it with something else but I haven't been on top of things and-”

“It's fine.” Shane gave him a look. He didn't understand why the human was acting the way he was. Shane wasn't too interested in delving into the mess of anxieties and determination the human's psyche was made of, but he could tell there was... Regret?

“You think it's a bad ep?” That seemed like a safe guess. Also something Shane could help him with. As long as Ryan's issues weren't _personal_ he was reasonably certain he could handle it.

“No. It's maybe... With the post production that went in it it's certainly presentable. I'd love to get a bit more on it though, more- more meat on the bones, and was wondering if you'd like to shoot some extra banter. I reserved the bar set so maybe? If you're free?”

“Sure.”

Shane had hard time grasping what was going on. Was Ryan laying a trap or..?

But that didn't feel quite right. Ryan was being careful, and there was certainly a lot of nervousness there, aimed at Shane.

But was he afraid _of_ him? Didn't quite feel like that.

“Just, I thought the episode was a bit dark-”

“Ya think? If a girl being murdered by her family is just 'a bit' dark I shiver to think what I'll be faced with next week. Cannibalism? Torture? A marathon of Bayformers flicks?”

Shane had meant it as a funny joke but it didn't seem to land.

Ryan took a step back. His shoulders sagged. “I can film this on my own. I genuinely mean it.

Did he want to get rid of Shane? Show off how he didn't need him?

“That would look weird, right?” Shane pointed out. “It's fine. It really is.”

In any case he should probably keep the tone light.

_Why are you like this? You're getting the chance to do your dream series, this should be easy! Just do your thing and let me hang along for the ride._

“So, uh-” Shane struggled to say something lighthearted about the case as they settled to the bar set. “She sure had paws. Tell me more about these paws. The history's first furry? Discuss.”

“I don't- I don't really have any more in depth descriptions at my disposal-”

Ryan let out a wheezing laugh though, so that was a good sign.

“Or was she turning into a bear? What if this wasn't a case of a demonic possession at all but the only documented case of a were-bear..?”

Ryan bristled. “Brrr. I think I would prefer a demon, actually.”

Shane leaned forward, fascinated by the sudden spike of fear. “Why?”

“Bears, man. Scary.”

“Hmmm.”

It was fear, yes, but far different from the genuine terror the human had experienced back in the Sallie house. This was far closer to the kind of fear humans radiated when watching horror movies. Suitable enough to sustain a demon such as Shane but not enough to leave him truly satisfied or feeling full.

Still, worth keeping in mind. He wondered how Ryan would react if forced face-to-face with an actual living bear.

Despite himself, his thoughts were once again drawn to the fears and anxieties and insecurities layered in this human's psyche...

And how some of it was directed at Shane in a way he couldn't quite grasp. Was Ryan suspicious of him?

That was close... Why couldn't Ryan just not pay attention to him? That'd be so much easier for everyone involved.

Shane's train of thought was interrupted by an apple being set on the table between them.

He stared at it, completely confused. “Apple a day keeps a demon away? Is this what we're doing now?”

“No, it's- you remember what you said? When we were filming?”

There it was again. Ryan definitely was up to something.

“I don't remember many of the things I said. I was just just free-flowing, baby, can't hold me back.”

The wave of anxiety and dry fear emanating from Ryan hit Shane.

Shane leaned back in his chair, trying his damnedest to seem friendly. As small and nonthreatening as possible, hunched over the table, his shoulders sagging. “Why don't you refresh my memory?”

“You remember? You said you bet you could squeeze an apple with one hand? To prove it was no big deal.”

“Oh.”

Shane picked the apple from the table. “Here we go.”

He inspected it. Doing this was probably difficult for a human. Maybe possible for the stronger ones. Of course-

“This is before preservatives,” Shane mused, trying to buy time.

“You hear that in the distance? It's the excuse train coming.”

Shane wrapped his fingers around the fruit. And squeezed.

He could have made the body stronger when making it. As it was the arm muscles he was working with seemed insufficient.

He wondered if he actually could channel more power to squish the apple. His powers tended to be more focused on influencing and dominating human emotion. If he actually tried he might be able to explode the fruit, but no way doing it without alerting Ryan to the fact he wasn't human.

Although summoning his talons would have been worth it just to see Ryan's face. Ryan's idea of demons was probably really utterly boring. All horns and leathery wings.

He looked at Ryan. He was observing Shane's attempts with some kind of a trepidation.

Did he suspect Shane was _possessed?_

Shane brought both hands to the apple and Ryan laughed, at least some of his tension broken.

“Okay!” Shane threw the unsquished apple away.

Ryan laughed again in that wheezing way that was starting to become familiar to Shane. “Told you!”

“Maybe I should go and pick up a demon. With two people in my noggin' we might be able to do it!”

“Yeah.”

Well, that had brought the mood right back down.

Ryan stood up to turn the camera off.

“I think that's it.”

Shane clapped his hands together. “Cool!”

“Sometimes, I think- Maybe I get too into these sort of things,” Ryan said as he sat back down.

“In- in what way?”

“Just- creepy shit. Not just demons but crime and murders. Maybe sometimes I think something is just- fascinating. It's not the murders but the mystery of it, you know? I'm not some kinda weirdo-”

“Not too convinced of that to be honest-”

Shane lifted his hands upon seeing the look Ryan shot at him. “But it's cool. I'm also a weirdo.”

“But I think. Brent kinda- Thinking back to it he was uncomfortable and didn't really want to say anything to me directly but I should have been able to pick up on the signs- Sometimes I have this idea for a project and get obsessed with it. Okay, a lot of the time.”

“This show, it's a good idea,” Shane said. “Mysteries are fascinating. Now me, I'm way too lazy to do research on these things but that's why we got people like you.”

“Cool. Good. Great.”

“And I like showing up to make fun of your hard work!”

“Thanks. I think.” Ryan sighed.

“Me? I got no ambition, baby! Sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

Shane had very little interest in career advancement so he very much preferred to be known as the reliable guy at the office. Someone humans did see as a valuable tool. Shane had very much consciously cultivated the image of a pleasant but totally nonthreatening person. Not someone who would steal your ideas. Not an actual competition.

“You never wanted to get out there though?” Ryan asked. “Curly did tell me you took a comedy improv class? Ever wanted to be an actor?”

“Well, yes. It's certainly interesting. People telling stories is what fascinates me personally. I like to think. I went through a period of my life when I was just... Going through the motions. But eventually it was just- not enough. I wanted to- to do more.”

That was uncomfortably close to truth. But after going in circles around Ryan for so long it felt like he was finally getting somewhere. He had to figure out how to convince Ryan to keep doing this.

He decided to be honest.

Up to a point.

“People like to create narratives where there's none. Conspiracies to explain things. Demon possessions. Ghosts... It's interesting to see how humans rationalize the world. Believe in things. I'm not even talking about stuff like religion but- You can have people telling stories to each other and they know it's not real but it still has meaning and that's _weird_. It's a reflection of people in a way pure emotion isn't, you know?” Shane licked his lips. “What about you? You could just research these things on your own. Is this series just a way to indulge in your hobby and get paid for doing it?”

“Hey, I do want to make movies! And I want to- to have that kind of a connection, you know?”

“I don't.”

“If I find out something, and even if I don't, if I put all this evidence together and make people watch it, I can reach out to all these different people. Around the world!”

“Who you'll never even meet.”

Ryan shook his head. “I'm probably not explaining it well. But it's, I think I can change things. Maybe I won't solve anything, but I can be out there, you know? Set an example? Just by being visible- And I realize it sounds like I'm really overestimating my skills and-”

“Nah I get it. Lot of people want to make their mark in the world. And don't sell yourself short!” Shane realized he could make a joke about Ryan's height but this didn't feel like the time. So he just filed it mentally for later and instead said: “Maybe you will achieve that! Maybe for you your big thing, your fifteen minutes- will be proving ghosts exist!”

Ryan smiled. “Maybe.”

“I genuinely want you to find something- something _real_ ,” Shane told him. “I'm not kidding.”

Ryan met his eyes. “I... believe you.”

He seemed more at ease now, at least.

And Shane too finally relaxed.

_This can actually work out._

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter:  
> world-building  
> manos the hand of fate quotes  
> perhaps too much talk of poo  
> male bonding via dental hygiene tips  
> and massive foreshadowing

Shane leaned back in the car seat, listening to Ryan explain the case of the 'Toxic Woman' and what effect she had had on the hospital staff.

“-avascular necrosis, a condition where the bone tissue does not receive enough blood and begins to die.”

“What?” Shane all but gawked.

Sure, humans died really easily, you just bonked them on the head a bit or deprived them of air or food for a few weeks. But the more Ryan talked about the case the more it did sound to him like a possible demon infestation.

Then again, he knew hell of a lot more about demon infestations than... hospital chemistry.

A demon draining the life out of a human until their body shriveled up and died? Sure. Bacteria doing the same? Sounds fake but okay.

Shane thought back to his admittedly non-extensive knowledge of medicine.

“Didn't this happen in Grey's Anatomy? How did they solve it there?”

“Shane, that was a TV series.”

“I know, but I'm sure they did- that they did research,” Shane argued. “Certainly more than you did.”

“Whatever. You could have at least cited the X-Files. That show wasn't in it just for the cheap romance drama.”

“Oh are we forgetting the sizzling sexual chemistry between Mulder and Scully now? The only reason anyone continued to watch the show after Season one? Anyway what about House? Did he ever have a walking stink bomb in his hospital? I trust him.”

Ryan wheezed. “Anyway-”

He continued with his script, reading the prepared speech from the screen of his phone.

Shane let it go, dropping the joke he had had about Hugh Laurie, letting Ryan set the pace for now.

More he heard about the case, more convinced he became it was just normal human-business with their human chemicals and sewage. To his experience, every time sewage and humans were involved things got weird in a way that led to humans dropping like flies.

However-

Mass hysteria sounded likely too, and he said as much.

“You think they all just, uh imagined it at the same time?” Ryan asked, incredulously. “Twenty-three people.”

“I mean, that's happened before. There's a bunch of those people in France who just started dancing till they died.”

“What??”

Ryan stared at Shane.

_Fuck. I was pretty sure it was a documented event. There were monks! With their quills. I am pretty sure one of them drew old Steve fighting and/or making out with a snail._

“Yeah.” He sounded hopefully more certain than he felt.

Ryan's eyes narrowed. “You just made that up right now.”

“That's a real thing pal!”

_And if it's not on Wikipedia yet I will add it as soon as we get back. I might leave out the bit where Steve was throwing up in a bush and I declared myself the Pope but-_

Shane wondered if he could reframe the event in a human context. A fun anecdote about his college days. He did get a kick out of just openly talking about his demonic nature around oblivious people.

Maybe later. For now it was best to move on.

“Ehh... you know... the mind is a powerful thing.”

He was relieved when Ryan didn't insist, and when Ryan brought out the alien theory Shane did genuinely burst into laughter. He hadn't been expecting it.

He grinned at the human.

_You got me, Ryan Bergara. I was totally blindsided by that one._

They got out of the car at the cemetery.

“We can't get in,” Ryan pointed. “The- the gates are closed for the night.”

“What? Then why did we come here during the night?”

Ryan waved his hand. “Ambiance!”

“This footage is gonna be so badly lit we could have shot it anywhere. You know what this is gonna look like?”

Ryan lifted an eyebrow. “No, what?”

“This is so gonna look like that scene in Manos: The Hands of Fate-”

Ryan burst into wheezing laughter.

Shane continued “You know, where the sheriff and the- his deputy just stand next to the car staring into the dark going 'Yeah we sure searched the scene!'”

“Buzzfeed Unsolved, cinematography inspired by the work of- whoever was responsible for Manos.”

Shane looked around, putting on his best Torgo impression: “There is no way out of here. It'll be dark soon. There is no way out of here.”

“It'll be dark soon," Ryan quoted. “I'm torn. Torgo? My wife? Hmmm.”

Shane made a face. “Come on, we're not quoting the MST3K version.”

Ryan turned to walk back to the car. “Who the fuck watches Manos raw?”

Shane followed him. “Come on now. Don't talk that way about your biggest directorial influence.”

“Shut up Shane.”

Without thinking, Shane got back behind the wheel. Wandering around for a bit in the dark near a cemetery wasn't exactly ghost-hunting but maybe this would ease Ryan back into it. He was just wondering if he should suggest, even if jokingly, trying to contact Gloria Ramirez's ghost as a part of the investigation, when Ryan stopped halfway into the car.

“Wait, since when could you drive?”

Shane froze. He had forgotten.

“I can drive. Sort of... Never renewed my license.”

“Shit, you better let me drive back.”

Shane let Ryan into the driver's seat and took shotgun.

He was slipping.

It had been when their link had been active. He had pulled the knowledge into himself without even noticing. Ryan had needed him to drive his car so he had picked up that skill.

“I should get a license, probably,” he said. “I just haven't had a car in a while. So.”

“How the fuck you do survive living in LA without a car?” Ryan shot him a look.

Shane shrugged. “Lot of planning. No social life.”

“Uh-huh. Ah. Okay.”

“I could get a license,” Shane mused. “It would probably be handy.”

Just like his physical form was technically only a reflection of things he had observed so was his set of skills. Being a demon, he could pull out skills from people. It was easiest with languages. Humans always assumed the demons would speak to them in their own language anyway.

But Shane Madej was supposed to be a human. He had a basically human body and everything! He had made 'Shane Madej' all by himself. He had prided himself on that and on being consistent. Shane focused on going through his languages. Shane Madej spoke some German now, then. Fine. But he hadn't picked up anything from Ryan it seemed. His influence on Shane remained minimal. Good.

He had no intention of getting involved. Not that Ryan would even attempt that sorta stuff.

Shane allowed himself to wonder what would have happened if he had just come out to Ryan as a demon.

Lot of screaming, presumably.

Shane looked at Ryan with a smile outside observer would have confused for fondness.

_Yeah, lot of screaming, definitely._

He opened his mouth to ask Ryan what he would do if he came face to face with a physical demon, but hesitated. It was too soon to bring that up. So, instead, he went with:

“If you were abducted by aliens, what would you do?”

“What?”

“You know, if a flying saucer flew in front of the car right now, you were beamed up, came face to face with a short grey man, all that jazz. What would you do, after the initial surge of joy over finally meeting someone shorter than you was starting to fade-”

“I would shit myself,” Ryan said. “I would genuinely shit myself, probably as a part of some kinda bodily defense mechanism to- to scare them away from doing any freaky butt-stuff.”

“You think aliens are gonna see all that poop and go 'that's it, this is too freaky even for us, let's bag it up!'”

“Hopefully! It'd be a shame if I did break new ground on the field of projectile diarrhea for nothing.”

Shane extended his pointer finger and gave his best E.T impression. “E.T. go home and rethink life.”

“Jesus fucking Christ don't do that. Your fingers are horrible.”

“Thanks. Made them myself.”

“What about you? If we came face to face with an alien craft, well what would it take for you to actually admit there's something to it?”

Shane considered the question. He was vaguely aware he had been around for a long time, presumably since forever. Humans popped into this world with their souls and once dead moved on. Demons though? Were tied to the world in ways humans were not. There had been long periods of Something that was the thing that would eventually be him, floating in... somewhere? The earliest memories he, before he hadn't even really been even an 'it', could really pinpoint were of humans. Of being an amorphous thing in the dark water watching them... Being aware of the raw emotion in these fascinating beings with their flickering souls... Lot of itself had been only a reflection of other beings back then, not much more than a ghost, and for the longest time its sense of self had been nearly non-existent. Occasionally there had been others like it and over time that all had gotten clearer. Connections had been made. Gods and demons and old nameless things. Hell.

The memories of what he figured he could call his 'childhood' were sketchy at best, and while he couldn't be absolutely certain he predated the Earth if that was true he probably was technically an alien.

“I do believe in aliens,” he said.

“You do?”

“It makes sense. The universe is a big place. There's- there's math that says there's aliens. Look it up.”

“You do that. I'm driving. Wait you're thinking of a thing in Star Trek.”

“No I'm not,” Shane lied. “Anyway even if I was- Hah, the Drake equation. I got science on my side and it's a real thing, baby.”

“You do realize I did see you find it by typing 'star trek the formula for alien life' on Google, right?”

“I owe so much of my science education to Star Trek, to be fair.”

_Maybe there's a planet out there with demons as the dominant life form. A scared little demon Ryan Bergara trying to find humans- No that doesn't make sense._

He stared at Ryan.

_If he was a demon I bet he would find some way of making up stupid conspiracy theories about humans. 'Welcome to DemonFeed Unsolved, this week I'm going to ramble about my theory that the Pope is hiding Satan and all of his legions under his big hat'._

Out loud he said: “Anyway I'm sure aliens exist out there. It's a big universe.”

“True.”

Ryan gave him an evaluating look. “So, if we do alien episodes, would you feel comfortable arguing against me?”

“Ryan, you could do an episode on the importance of flossing and I'm sure I could shoot it full of holes.”

Ryan laughed. “I think it's fair to warn you, my dad's a dentist, I got that hard-hitting flossing knowledge drilled into my brain since I was too young to even have anything to floss. I think I couldn't make an ill-informed episode on dental hygiene even if I tried. I'm pretty sure my dad would cry and I'm just not prepared to see that.”

Shane filed 'Ryan's dad is a dentist' in the mental folder he was starting to have on his co-host. Just in case.

_Wait. He is telling me things about his family. Quick. Offer equivalent information to bond. This is male bonding we are doing now._

“My father is- _not_ a dentist.”

Not his greatest moment. Shane couldn't remember what the story here was. What had he decided on that part of his backstory, apart from them being estranged?

_Doesn't matter. Ryan is just going to think it was a joke or that I'm a weirdo._

Shane made a voice: “Coming soon on Unsolved: Flossing vs Brushing. I will try and look like an ignorant asshole. I am willing to do that for this partnership. Teethbrush? What are those?”

“You could use flossing every now and then,” Ryan mumbled. “You do realize your breath sort of stinks sometimes and some people have to sit in a tiny car next to you...”

“Ngh. Fuck you.”

Shane ran his tongue on his teeth. He didn't have to worry about cavities but maybe-

Well this conversation had gone off rails. Ryan had the habit of throwing him off his game.

“I appreciate it by the way, bro,” Ryan noted. “Your- contribution to the show I mean. Not bad breath.”

“Thanks.”

A silence fell between them. Shane pretended to look at his phone. He glanced at Ryan.

At first Shane had thought him a coward and easy to pull apart. But now he was less and less certain.

Ryan might, if he ever figured out his true nature, just actually try to drag him in front of the cameras for proof.

_Maybe I'll even let him do it once I'm leaving this show behind. Let Ryan kill off Shane Madej for good._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also i'm wondering if i should name the chapters after the episodes they're about but not all chapters will be so easily divided. hm  
> Also i fucked up the italics when first posting it i shouldn't post a new chapter when i'm just about to go to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter:  
> -teeth  
> -i guess some other stuff too

Shane opened the tube of toothpaste he had bought on his way to his apartment.

It was only then that it occurred to him he didn't own a toothbrush. So he squirted some of the minty paste into his mouth and rolled it around for a bit with his tongue before swallowing.

Maybe he should have just bought some mouthwash. Or made it into tea. He bared his teeth and inspected his reflection in the slightly cracked bathroom mirror. Perfectly normal human teeth. Good.

He leaned forward, having to crouch a bit in his tiny bathroom, and brought his nose to the cold surface of the mirror. And stared at the face blinking back at him. It was a normal human face and a normal enough of a human body, even if bits of it were unwieldy long (especially considering how utterly tiny his shower was) and he could have admittedly done a better job with some of the proportions. He was aware he had lucked out in some of his choices, going for 'male' and 'white' at least, copying and borrowing features from humans he had observed, with only a vague idea of the implications at the time. It was largely a suitable human form for his purposes, even if with what he knew now he would have made it slightly shorter to more easily disappear into the crowd and blend in. Really, he was very satisfied with his creation. And yet he was feeling antsy and restrained and like he needed to shed this disguise _right now-_

He opened his mouth and eyed the distinctly square and blunt teeth.

_Three kinds of teeth. Humans have incisors, and canines, and molars. Uh premolars do the same thing, I guess-_

He pulled out his phone and navigated to the Wikipedia page on human teeth.

 _Four types of teeth? Seems excessive_.

He breathed in deep, the heart in his body hastening in some kind of an attempt to match the restlessness in the deep parts of his essence that remained utterly inhuman.

This was a pain. What if he slipped up? At work? In front of Ryan? Ryan would probably notice if his teeth were all premolars. He had noticed things about his teeth already.

_Does Ryan notice things about me?_

It was an unsettling thought. Shane had never worried about it before.

He was shaken out of his reverie by the sink flooding and water spilling out on his toes. He turned the faucet off, even if the idea of just letting it run on was tempting.

_Once I leave this apartment I'll just leave all the faucets on and let it flood._

Lately he was making lot of plans for what he'd do when he finally left this life behind, he couldn't help noticing.

 

* * *

 

 

Shane poured yet an another cup of tea for himself before taking his usual spot next to Curly. He had no real need for human food but there was something like a constant thirst making its home in his throat lately. A feeling he was recognizing well by now.

He'd need to feed soon.

He gave an evaluating look to the man next to him. Good old Curly, reliable, even if Shane was never fully satisfied with the scraps of fear he pulled out of the man. Partly because he had been unwilling to push him to his limits to get to that juicy genuine terror. He hadn't wanted to ruin things. So maybe it was time to move on at least for a bit to avoid rousing suspicion. Kelsey maybe? He had never fed on her before. When he had first started at the office he had used to enjoy trying out new things, figuring out the taste of new fears, what made the different people he shared the office with tick-

The different flavors of uneasiness to fear to terror...

Shane took a sip out of his water bottle, hoping he could submerge himself in the cold liquid. How long had it been since he had fed _properly?_ Years probably. Even longer since he had taken a soul.

His eyes found Kelsey again. He could pay her a visit later. Or just use Curly again, that might be for the best.

At what point had he become so cautious?

_Maybe I shouldn't feed so close to home, so to speak._

He had thought he had had a system, he had been proud of it.

_It's fine, I'm just feeling jittery because I've starved myself._

He sensed the familiar aura of anxiety and looked up as Ryan took the spot on his other side. He sat down and opened his laptop.

“I have been looking into some possible cases.”

Shane lifted an eyebrow. He didn't mention it was weird Ryan would talk to him like this. He thought part of the show was him being kept in the dark until filming.

“Did you look into that dancing plague thing? A real thing. Told ya, didn't I?”

Ryan nodded absentmindedly, is eyes on the screen. “Yeah. No, this is. Considerably less hilarious. I will put it on the list of possible episodes though. Happy?”

“Awh, you'd do that for me? Oh! Other good ideas: Ben Franklin was in a sex cult.”

“Okay. Maybe not what I'm looking for but-”

“Hmm, yeah. Maybe something closer to LA? So we could visit the location? It has gotten us some grade-A material in the past...”

Shane paid attention to his tone and was careful to sound casual. He couldn't let the human notice just how excited the memory of Ryan almost losing his mind in the Sallie house was making him.

Ryan nodded, oblivious to the hunger in Shane's eyes. “Yeah. Exactly what I had in mind. I got some possible cases. Murders. We can go shoot some footage on location.”

Shane leaned in closer, pretending his attention was on Ryan's computer screen with its dozens of open Wikipedia tabs. “Oh?”

“Nothing too recent. I think that would be in bad taste and have- other problems. I am not looking for getting in trouble with the law. Uh so.”

“And it is easier making fun of old cases,” Shane pointed out. “Almost like they're victimless!”

“Ha. Yeah.”

“Once it's old enough it's just fun times. Once everyone is wearing a bonnet it's like they're not even real people.”

“Well, I mean. The relatives of their victims are probably not around anymore, so...”

Shane leaned back. “I'm just kidding.”

“We could. Maybe- I did look into some possible haunted locations. Nothing certain. Maybe after the holidays, but-”

“People liked the demon ep,” Shane decided to try. Ryan seemed to be pretty motivated by the viewers.

“They fucking sure did.”

Maybe it was best to make Ryan feel like this wasn't all just to make fun of him.

“Not just you losing your shit. Apparently lot of people just wanna see me get disemboweled! I got one of those faces, ya know?” Shane shrugged. “I bet people would be into watching me yell at some other supposed demon. They'd tune in just to see if this will be the week my guts get pulled out through my nose.”

Ryan pointed a finger at him. “I'll tell you what, we're not shooting an another demon episode. I'm making a rule; no demons.”

“Cool. Fine.” He couldn't help adding: “Just imagine though. Getting real video evidence of a demon. Would be great.”

“Would be terrifying is what it'd be.”

But Shane could sense the tinge of hunger again. He was certain he could push Ryan into an another demon investigation eventually.

He just hoped it'd be sooner rather than later.

* * *

 

 

Ryan pulled out the script and they started.

The episode turned out to be about the mysterious disappearance of five children. Shane acted suitably horrified, and he felt like he was doing better job with keeping the tone morbid but still fun.

If anything, Ryan was the one pushing for the more morbid jokes, encouraging Shane to roast the bumbling fire department and the failed investigation. Something Shane was more than happy to do, and he noted, satisfied, all the genuine laughs he managed to get out of Ryan. He made little notes at the back of his mind at what got the biggest wheezing laughs out of him, made sure to sound sympathetic, paid attention to his words, was careful not to make fun of the family itself.

But Shane did think of the ordeal they had gone through. Losing their kids like that, being failed by the police and their community. Maybe still looking for the relatives that seemingly disappeared that night.

If they knew they were dead, that would be it. There would be closure. But believing your children might still be alive, chasing after lead after lead for decades? Shane wondered if it was done on purpose. It would be sadistic. What perfect revenge. It wasn't something he'd be into, despair never really did it to him but he could appreciate it in a way. And if this was done by _humans?_ Dedication!

Shane observed the human sitting next to him in the tiny room. He was fascinated by it too even if it must have been very different from a demon's interest and appreciation. What did draw Ryan in? The mystery of it all? Just never knowing for sure? The actual possibility of figuring out something no one had thought of before?

He wondered how much Ryan thought of them, the Sodders, as people. So he eventually spoke:

“I think this is the saddest case I have heard you dig up so far.”

“It is- it is a lot,” Ryan admitted.

“They just never found out- you know. Just disappearing like that. When I die I sure just want to go 'poof' and leave all of my loved ones wondering if I'm still alive.”

“Dude, that's dark.”

“Yes, well comes with the format of the show! This is a dark show, Ryan. I'm just glad you didn't blame it on the aliens,” Shane said. Encouraged by Ryan's smile he continued: “No ghosts here, no aliens.”

“I mean can you rule out they weren't abducted?”

Shane tried to look as exasperated as possible. “No.”

“That's what I wanted to hear.” Ryan laughed. “It kills you. Just look at your face. Can't stand it, can ya? I can see your jaw clenching.”

Eventually Shane broke into laughter. “Yeah. Fair. Maybe it was aliens.”

He followed Ryan out of the studio. “I _do_ believe in aliens. You know that.”

“Yeah. It was just a bit of an easy joke to make.”

“Maybe they were kidnapped by ghosts,” Shane said. “Go on, in the future, just suggest ghosts. I know how to shoot those arguments right down.”

“Sure.”

They parted ways as Shane poured yet another cup of water for himself and gulped it down.

_So. Ryan Bergara._

He certainly wanted to go back to ghost hunting. There had been that familiar sort of thirst in his eyes again when Shane had mentioned ghosts.

_So then._

Shane sat back at his desk, eyes following Ryan talking to people at the office before disappearing into one of the VO booths.

So, the problem was; Ryan really wanted to go looking for ghosts, Shane really wanted him to go looking for ghosts, hundreds of thousands of viewers really wanted him to go looking for ghosts, and yet Ryan was... _not_ doing that.

Shane needed to do something to get Ryan to seek out these places.

He'd have to do some tempting, yeah? He was a demon, he could do that.

But Ryan was already plenty tempted, it was just that he had mental blocks stronger than that stopping him.

Shane pulled out some post-it-notes and made a list of possible avenues to pursue:

  * temptation (hey ryan wanna see some ghosts?)

  * fear of ridicule (tell everyone at the office to make fun of him for being a scared baby)

  * remind him it's his job??? (try to get him fired if he won't)

  * sports (kobe and/or superbowl ?????)




 

He was pretty proud of that last bit. Putting all that insight on Ryan's psyche to good use.

After a moment's hesitation he added:

 

  * -encouragement. (????)



 

The word sat on there like a rude challenge. Technically the complete opposite of what he should be doing. Make Ryan feel comfortable and safe. Brave. At least until they got on location.

But if it was the opposite of what came naturally to him it should be easy, right? He already understood how fear worked so he just had to nudge Ryan into the opposite direction. Same axis of emotion, or something like that.

He circled the word 'encouragement' again.

Shane reached to his side to poke the man sitting next to him. “Hey. Curly.”

“Hm?”

“Do you know anyone who knows anything about. Anti-ghost things? Hmmm... Like purification?”

Trying to drive ghosts away on location itself would be counter-productive to the whole 'trying to find ghosts' mission statement, but if Ryan was convinced he'd be safe from anything following him back home...

“Noo, I just choose not to mess with those things in the first place. Why are you asking _me?_ ”

 _Because if you do have any anti-ghost or demon measures in place at your home they sure as hell don't actually work at all_.

“I think it's all just. In the mind. But I do believe in placebo effects.” Shane glanced at Ryan across the office. “I'd just want to make Ryan feel more comfy. If he felt more certain that the spooky specters and poltergeists couldn't follow him home that'd be good for everyone's peace of mind.”

Curly gave him a look. “Oh.”

“Listen, I am asking you because I know you believe in ghosts and your advice would, probably be more heartfelt. I could get Ryan some... Would crucifixes work or is that just vampires? Basically I'm looking for something that'd give him a confidence boost.”

_Nothing that'd work too well though I'm pretty sure Ryan couldn't actually harm me anyway..._

“I don't know... He has his holy water? Ask him.” Curly patted Shane's shoulder. “My honest advice though? There's plenty of fish in the sea. Listen, me and the boys were planning to head to a little prechristmas party this weekend and it'd be great for taking your mind off of Bergara-”

“Nonono that'd just. It gotta be him.” Shane tried to think of back to any pop culture Wiccan TV shows he could think of. “Oh. Sage. That'd be perfect. Fancy. Causes a spooky stink. Fire is involved so it's very mystical.”

“I think that's more a white-lady-pagan thing than-”

“Yeah! We got any of those at the office?”

True, Ryan Bergara was none of those things but Shane felt anything that could be described as a 'white-pagan-lady' thing probably was in some kind of a general vicinity of his beliefs considering they seemed to be a confused mishmash of things. Anything vaguely old-sounding and spooky probably would convince Ryan. And anything like that also had the benefit of presumably not actually working.

Perfect.

 

* * *

 

 

“Shane?”

Ryan leaned in closer. “I came to work this morning and my desk smelled weird. There's this strong wooden earthly smell wafting on it. Did the Try Guys do weird shit to my desk again? Please tell me. I don't want to have to learn about this weeks from now on by watching a video titled 'We Tried Putting Our Coworkers Office Supplies In Substances No Office Supplies Should Be In' again.”

“Hmm, well. It was the sage I assume.”

“The who-what?”

Shane tapped his desk. “Some of our coworkers believe in these things, you know. I think it was Kirsten who came by and waved one of those burning sticks around and voila, a slightly smelly but a ghost-free workplace.”

“And you let them smoke your desk-”

“The word is 'smudge', apparently. And what do you know? My desk is completely unhaunted now.”

Ryan sat next to him. “I know how this joke goes. It was always unhaunted, wasn't it? Har har.”

Shane shrugged. “Well, if it makes her feel safer.”

It certainly had done nothing. What little faith put into the action had been unfocused, which had suited Shane just fine.

“The gesture is nice,” Ryan said. “Maybe I should look into it.”

“I hear it takes years of practice,” Shane hurried to say. He wasn't too keen on finding out how good _Ryan_ would be at it. “Kirsten said the first three months she almost burned her house down and accidentally invited a legion of demons for some Netflix and chill. Anyway-”

He pulled out a box from under his desk. “Merry Christmas. Sorry, didn't get it wrapped.”

“Oh, wait, I thought we'd give the office secret Santa gifts later when-”

“No, it's not that. I wasn't- this is just because I wanted to get them to you.”

Ryan took the box. “Oh. That's nice. These are- Christmas ornaments? Balls? Festive.”

“Not just any old Christmas ornaments. Bought them from the gift shop at a local Catholic Church. I was assured they were, at least at some point, in the vicinity of a pope. Like, the same country at least. The ol' Popemeister might have even thrown some blessings in their general direction.”

He pulled one of the balls out. “This lady here is the virgin Mary, uh, this dude, I dunno but he looks important what with the fancy robes. Probably Jesus or some of the other big wigs. Put them on your tree.”

Ryan gave him a look. “Thanks. I will. I'll be spending Christmas with my family I'm sure my father-”

“Who is a dentist,” Shane interjected to show off he had been paying attention.

“Yes. That one. I only have the one. I'm sure he will like these. I'll make sure they're hung on the tree.”

Ryan turned the ball in his hand before giving Shane a knowing look. “Shane are you- _Fuck_ now I gotta get something for you. I do appreciate the anti-ghost balls you gave me and yes I realized just how dumb it sounded just as the words came out of my mouth.”

“It's fine. I just saw them and thought of you.”

“You often hang out in Catholic gift shops?”

“Hey, I got layers.”

This seemed like a good spot for his planned speech. Shane made eye-contact and went through the list in his head. “You know, I do think about it sometimes, that kind of possibility of there being something out there. Don't you? Don't you want to see a ghost and do your job? What if you'll get fired if you won't? Don't you care if people are making fun of you behind your back? Maybe Mister Kobe saw your video and is sitting at home making fun of you ever think of that? Get back on the horse, as they say. You can do it! For Kobe.”

_That covered all the bases, probably. Wait-_

“I will give you ten bucks if you provide me with ghost footage.”

Ryan sighed. “Oh wow. Ten bucks. What would I do with such a fortune? Buy more Pope Balls? You know, I have actually caught a ghost on tape. Once, ten years ago.”

“Oh?”

“I realize what this sounds like, I know.” He put on his best Zak Bagans impression: “'My name is Ryan Bergara. I never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw on video'. But it's true. I even got it recorded!”

“I don't know if you believe me but I _am_ very ready to believe in ghosts. If I saw this footage of yours-”

“I lost it.” Ryan gave an embarrassed smile. “I was in a cabin on this haunted ship, and I didn't believe in anything supernatural, we were messing around and filming, and then suddenly- whamp- my tube of toothpaste flew right across the room!”

“And ever since you have believed in ghosts. And the importance of dental hygiene.”

“You laugh, but if you had just seen it- you'd believe.”

“Hey, maybe I would.”

Ryan licked his lips. “You know, it's on the table. The ship. I am not opposed to doing an episode on it. At some point.”

 _Interesting_.

“Your origin story. _Ryan Bergara IV: The Beginning_. No, I think it sounds fun. I've never been on a haunted ship. Does it like- are we talking a cruise-”

“I think these days it's just permanently docked.”

“Ah. A shame. I was thinking we could take it on a spin. Cruise to the Bermuda Triangle for extra hauntedness... Hauntitude. Is that a word it's getting late and I think I was thinking of the word 'altitude'...”

“I don't think it is. But yeah... I think- After the holidays, we can arrange for a little trip. No promises yet, depends if I can sell the pitch, but I think there's a location pretty close by we could check out.”

“Sounds good! I'm up for it. Getting my ghost busting gear all ready.”

“Sounds great.”

Shane watched Ryan pull out his laptop to continue working. He was going to claim this as a success.

Shane drew in a long breath and ran his tongue on is teeth absentmindedly. He was feeling more relaxed than he had in days.

More settled into his skin now that he had a plan.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nghgn i have a feeling i'm failing at writing curly i should watch more videos with him (I went into this with the plan to write based on BFU only but. hm)  
> if anyone wants to recommend vids with him to get his voice down i'm all ears


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whaley house!

“This is it, the famous Whaley house,” Ryan noted.

“Beautiful house, beautiful,” Shane said. He had quickly googled it on their drive down there. It sure had a reputation at least. But it was also a tourist attraction and a museum, with probably hundreds if not thousands of people coming through every day. And as Ryan had noted it was in the middle of a busy part of the city. Not really the spookiest location. He could see why Ryan had chosen it. It was supposedly active (but not too much), famous, and even if they found nothing ghostly the historical background would be enough to give some substance to the episode.

He figured it'd be best to just say it outright:

“A great choice, Ryan.” He added: “You're doing fine.”

“Well I am still breathing. If I'm getting possessed just- leave me behind and run for the hills.”

“That's not going to happen,” Shane told him truthfully.

He gestured at Ryan. “You know what they say. Sometimes you just gotta pick and roll it like Mister Kobe would. Focus on your strengths, of which you have many. Like Charles Barkley.”

Ryan stared at him. “Huh?”

“He was, during his career in NBA, a versatile player who had the ability to score, create plays, and defend.” Shane nodded expectantly. “You could be like Charles Barkley of making ghost hunting shows, ever think of that?”

“Dude, did you just- google 'the most famous NBA players' or something what the fuck was that?”

“Maybe I did. Did it help with your insane fear of old houses?”

“I guess I appreciate it. But promise you won't do it again just hearing misapplied sports facts rolling out of your mouth is making me nauseous.”

Shane turned towards the house. “Whatever! Let's dump and chase this show to the road, baby!”

“That- _that_ you did on purpose!”

But Ryan's amusement eclipsed his annoyance and fear, and after only the slightest hesitation he followed Shane inside.

“It's fine,” Shane told him, turning to get footage of the hallway.

“Oh this is...Pleasant. You could feel the history coming from the walls in here.”

“Yeah isn't it wonderful?” Shane smiled.

“Not when the history fights back!”

“You mean like, part of the plaster might fall on ya?” Shane looked up, pretending to be concerned. “Not really 'fighting' as much as just neutral, like gravity just chilling, doing its thing. You don't usually say spoiled food is 'fighting' you when it makes your tummy rumble. I _guess_ it does make your life a bit more exciting though. Hey, maybe some plaster will fall on us!” He raised his voice. “Hey!”

“Stop yelling! We gotta meet up with the site rep I don't want her to think we're gonna do anything weird to their museum.”

“We're trying to catch ghosts. That's already weird. I'm just trying to pick a fight with the house, Ryan! I figure the chances of us getting any ghost-proof are slim so we can settle on the part of the ceiling landing on my face. Or as Ryan Bergara would say, me 'fighting the Whaley house'.”

“I don't get how you can be so cavalier about this.”

Shane watched Ryan go talk to the museum keeper to arrange for them to be led to a room they could shoot their intro in.

Ryan was feeling nervous but not too much.

Well it'd chance at some point of the evening.

 

* * *

 

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we explore the Whaley house in San Diego, California as part of our on-going investigation; are ghosts real? And what better place then the Whaley house which was ranked by the Travel Channel's 'America's most haunted' as _the_ most haunted house in America.”

“Number one?” Shane asked, incredulous.

“Number one.”

“Top of the pops?”

 _This?_ There was nothing remotely supernatural in this house. (Present company excluded.)

“We're going for the top dog. Let's just get this over with and let's get into the history!”

Shane shrugged. “Okay!”

It wasn't like there was much else to the house. He had done a light sweep through the shadows right when they had arrived and had picked up nothing. What a disappointment.

Some places were just naturally more active, the ones he was more aware of were places where demons had punched a hole through to feed Hell, and those didn't necessarily make for a good source of power for any ghosts or witches trying to contact them. Those places were hungry, and greedy, and not willing to give out any of their precious energy without a great cost.

Shane had never been one to meddle with the witches much, even with the temptation of fully consuming human souls, but to his understanding they did generally search out the more giving... portals? Ryan had talked about portals.

Shane did know of some witches willing to give their souls to demons, even eagerly, but had never felt much need to get into it much. He had been content with making pacts, and taking souls even, but unlike some of his demon brethren he had never had that much interest in the damnation of human souls. Getting a human to fully give their soul, giving up their afterlife, was a commitment, and the thing currently wearing the form of Shane Madej had always preferred his freedom, thank you very much.

So his actual knowledge of witchcraft was in some aspects embarrassingly superficial.

He suddenly wished he could ask Steve about it.

 

* * *

 

Shane walked forward, leading Ryan and TJ into the house. Every room was as ghost-free as the last. He hadn't expected demons but ghosts had been a possibility at least. There were supposedly mediums coming around all the time. Surely some of them were genuinely capable of pulling ghosts out? But there was way less activity than he had assumed, and Shane wondered if even he could summon ghosts if he tried. He had done it before. It had been so easy back then... He was fairly certain he still could, especially given an active location. But why bother wasting his energy to create a weak apparition or two? Still, he was slightly curious, and when they were alone and settled into the court room, Shane decided to properly poke around for a bit.

“What do you feel in here?” Shane asked.

Ryan looked at him. “I- feel a little bit like I'm being watched. But I don't- mind it.”

_Oh?_

Shane wondered what Ryan would say if he was truly aware of the demonic influence around him. How he'd scream.

“Do you think it's anything similar to the Sallie house?” he couldn't help asking.

Thoughtfully, Ryan shook his head. “I don't... Think so... I don't think it's similar at all.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Let's hope it stays this way.”

He walked to the back of the room. “Apparently this part of the room is a spiritual vortex.”

“What's a difference between a vortex and a portal?” Shane asked.

“I don't know? I guess. How things go in and out?”

“Like, portals are two-way and a vortex is one-way?”

“Yeah sure. Let's go with that.”

Ryan stood a bit straighter. “I'm going to walk there and sit down, you stay here and point the camera at me, okay?”

“Don't worry, I'll keep rolling no matter what. Even if your head is suddenly chopped off by an unseen force.”

Ryan shot him a dirty glare.

Shane smiled. “I'm a professional. I won't be bothered by the blood spatter _or_ the spinal fluids squirting out of your neck-stump.” He gave Ryan a thumbs up with his free hand.

Ryan sat down at one of the back chairs.

“Spirit, if you're here and you're angry, Ryan would like to feel a shiver up his spine...” Shane leaned back in his chair, reaching out into the dark to feel out the house.

“They don't respond to specific requests,” he told Ryan.

“Nhah that's true. You just gotta wait for it to happen.”

“Maybe it's a good portal,” Shane suggested.

He felt around the house with his talons, letting them snake throughout the shadows in the walls, feeling out for any remnants of energy there.

“Maybe, maybe,” Ryan laughed nervously.

“My flashlight went out,” Shane noted, mostly to himself.

“Are you serious?”

Shane clicked it.

“Perhaps battery?” Ryan suggested.

“No...”

Shane remembered his skeptic role here. “I mean possibly, but... I don't know...”

He turned the flashlight in his hand. He had lowered the temperature in the room without even thinking about it. That just came naturally with the exertion of his powers. Maybe he had also drained the battery?

He moved his fingers on the flashlight, focusing on the sense of touch in his human hands. The metal was freezing.

Ryan interrupted his thoughts. “Oh fuck dude I feel very weird.”

“Why do you feel weird?” Shane let his shadows reach out to Ryan. How close could he get without Ryan totally freaking out?

“I don't know I feel like, dizzy.”

“You feel dizzy?”

A claw gently wrapped around the human. Not in direct contact with his flickering soul, but circling it like a predator, waiting for the chance to strike.

“Yeah I'm not shitting you I know every time people watch these ghost hunter shows they're like t-this guy's full of shit but holy balls dude-”

 _To be fair most of those ghost hunters probably don't have demons hanging out with them_.

Ryan stared into Shane's eyes. “Wow. I don't like this.”

_Liar._

“What was that? Did you get a shiver up your spine?”

For good measure Shane reached out his shadows to brush slightly on Ryan's back. The human shivered, finally.

“Holy shit. Oh man that was crazy. What the fuck is going on dude?”

Shane pulled himself back into his body and stood up. “My turn.”

Only now he felt true panic in Ryan. His soul practically flared in his being.

Shane frowned. “Come on. Let me sit in the spooky chair. Don't hog all the shivers to yourself dude.”

Ryan stood up. “Okay. Just remember I warned you.”

They changed places, and Shane leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.

The fear radiating from Ryan was palpable and yet Shane hesitated in indulging himself. He didn't understand it. And the way Ryan's soul almost reached out to him. Shane pulled into himself. Ryan was clearly terrified.

But why..? Shane wasn't even actively doing anything now?

He opened his eyes and looked Ryan in the eye.

“I don't feel particularly strange. It's not a great chair.”

 

* * *

 

They were approaching the most supposedly haunted location in the house, and Shane finally decided to make his move. They hadn't found anything interesting but the least he could do was get fed.

“I'm gonna- I'm gonna try to talk to him in here. Why won't we just, one of the time-”

Shane almost tripped over his words as he saw Ryan's face. He looked like he was only barely holding himself together.

_Good._

“So it's more private. Just each of us try to just spend like five minutes alone.”

“Let's do it before I change my mind. Come on let's just do it,” Ryan told him.

Shane suggested he'd go first. To build the tension. Let Ryan sit outside the room, getting more and more scared over nothing.

When his turn came he was already at the edge of a breakdown.

Shane listened Ryan's almost whimpering through the door.

Well, he was parched.

“Fuckfuckfuck-”

“Watch your language,” Shane told him.

“I can't.”

But he did calm down slightly, and Shane regretted talking to him.

_Well then._

It was then that Shane reached all in. He closed his eyes and left his human body largely behind, senses pooling into the shadowy claws. A house like this wasn't his natural habitat. The wood was dry and air was dusty. But he could make do. He circled around Ryan and stroke, pulling him into the shadows just enough. He held himself back, Ryan would come out largely unscathed from this. Shane could, like the ghost of an emotion, feel the lips of his human body curl into a smile as an idea came to him. His shadows reached to the human, taking almost physical form and whispered to his ear: “Ryan.”

Ryan leaped up. The shadows hungrily pulled at him as Shane forgot himself for a second.

_**Pull him through, pull him down, down down down into the-** _

He couldn't, the shadows here weren't enough-

_No._

He retreated.

_This was enough._

“Okay is one of you messing with me?”

Shane pulled the fear into himself. He could swear he felt its taste on his tongue before letting it sink in. He felt full. Good. He swallowed, his human form mimicking the act of feeding almost reflexively.

“What are you talking about?” The words rolled out of his mouth with some difficulty as he settled fully back in the flesh again.

He was still aware enough of Ryan to know he sat back down. “Oh my god. Dude something whispered in my ear.”

Soon he stumbled out of the room.

“You okay dude?” Shane asked, stepping closer.

“Yeah.” Ryan stood straight. “Let's just film our final thoughts and be done with this.”

* * *

 

”Something breathed in my right ear,” Ryan said, talking to the camera. He turned to Shane. “And it was so prominent I thought it was _you_ messing with me. I'm honestly in shock right now.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah.”

_And yet you're not._

Ryan's emotions kept confusing Shane.

“It was a ghost. What did the ghost say? Anything about boats?”

“I don't know. It was a spooky whisper!”

Shane wondered. There was something about Ryan's state of mind that made no sense to him whatsoever. Oh well.

At least he had gotten fed. This should last a while for him. And it had been good. Not as good as back in the Sallie house but still...

Shane pretended to inspect his nails. Oh if he could... Shift this human form, bare his talons at least-

_Later, later. I have time._

After they gathered their equipment and went to talk to the site rep they stepped out of the house.

“That went well!” Shane said. He turned to the house for some final departing footage. “Goodbye, you were a fancy house, 10/10 on the fancy scale, 0/10 on haunted. Overall...8/10 just for Ryan almost shitting his pants. Good effort.”

“Fuck you.”

_Time for encouragement. I want him to keep doing this!_

He waited until the cameras were off.

“That really went well though, don't you think? We got some good footage.”

“Of me sitting in a chair describing the goosebumps I got.”

“Perhaps not the kind of evidence that will actually convince anyone but...” Shane shrugged.

Maybe he should drop in some evidence for Ryan to find every now and then. Would anyone watch the show if they never even found anything?

“I will go through the recordings,” Ryan told him. “I am not kidding, I really did hear a voice.”

“Old houses make noises all the time. I bet most of these so-called apparitions are just old house creaks and doors being pulled open in the wind! It happens in old houses, it's uh, hinges. Hinges getting swollen in the rain.”

“Oh yeah, a police officer seeing a woman in period clothing disappearing into thin air was actually just some wet hinges. Obviously.”

Shane made a non-committal throat noise.

“I guess the ghosts will have to wait until we get ghost cop Ryan Bergara on the case.”

Ryan smiled. “Let's hope it will be a while before that happens. For now-”

He gestured at the bars across the street. “Beer? My treat.”

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- sharks  
> \- reference jokes only aimed at ME  
> \- please shane stop making ryan worry you'll commit suicide  
> \- i am not american and i think you can tell  
> \- min bästa tid in och ut av IKEA är 15 minuter

Shane sat next to Ryan on the bench and breathed in the salty air. This case was clearly not what he was looking for but he was finding listening to Ryan more enjoyable than he had expected. And the human was willing to go on location! He was even putting himself in some danger, so that was progress.

They had explored the Sunset Cliffs a bit before to get some footage and were now set to talk more about the case.

“A little besides the point, but very impressive on the great white shark's behalf, that they can do such a clean bite!” Shane ran his tongue on his unfortunately dull (at the moment) human teeth. Humans sure were inferior in that department. He wasn't really into weird teeth stuff but maybe he should take the form of a shark some time?

Not the most natural fit to him but something to think about.

He had managed a human form pretty easily (well, eventually). How hard was a fish after that?

“Well it's a powerful animal,” Ryan said.

“Hell yeah it is!”

Shane wondered for a fraction of a second if that was suspicious, but humans wished they had animal qualities all the time. (He had heard of furries.) He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Ryan tried to argue a bear was a deadly animal.

He flipped him off eventually. “Fuck you!”

For a fraction of a second he thought it had been a step too far but Ryan laughed.

_Good._

“Anyway, there's... birds. Consider, bear versus eagle.”

“The- the bear would just chomp the eagle's head- just right off!” Ryan argued.

“Nah, birds have the- the aerial advantage. Or water- watery advantage.”

“Water... birds. What the _fuck_ are you talking about?”

“Penguins,” Shane stated. “Have you _not_ seen the March of the Penguins? Those birds... are tough.”

“Can we please get back to sharks eating people? Or I guess- possibly not?”

_Ah yes._

“Sharks were framed!”

“Yeah maybe it was actually a- a penguin-”

“Hell yeah!” Shane agreed. “A penguin standing in a corner, smoking a cigar going '"I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really - I was alive.”

“What the fuck is this show turning into?” Ryan wheezed.

“I don't know!”

Whatever it was, Ryan clearly liked it.

* * *

 

Shane poked a pile of kelp on the beach. He couldn't care less about the mystery behind this woman's death. Murder. Suicide. Accident. No way of knowing anyway. But as he listened Ryan talk he found it was surprisingly fun to come up with different explanations, and when Ryan got into the murder theories his interest was piqued once more.

“This sounds like a... a Law and Order interview,” he mocked the witness testimony, realizing something. There was something to be said about fictionalizing murder. He didn't quite understand why humans did it but now that he thought about it their fascination with death was weird. It wasn't like they were able to feed off of it, right? Maybe it made their own inevitable end easier to prepare for.

Peculiar.

Maybe that's why Ryan was so into it. This show. Maybe that was what humans did. Took their tragedies and made Youtube videos about it. Talked about deaths as game-like mysteries to be solved.

Or wrote terrible poems about it.

He wondered if Ryan wrote poetry.

“Nice view,” Shane remarked, pointing at the ocean.

“Yeah, it is,” Ryan agreed. “This is a famous tourist spot.”

“And if she did kill herself, a beautiful place to do it. Beautiful.”

“I don't really think that's a- a consideration anyone would make...”

“Why not? Would you not rather die in a nice-looking place? In a place like this instead of a- a heroin crack alley.”

“I guess that is a- a point,” Ryan admitted. “Hey, at least it'd make for a nicer memorial. Though on the other hand, gonna ruin the place for a lot of people. Your family wouldn't really be... into this beach anymore. 'Oh honey, remember how Ryan died here?'.”

“Yeah, your dad's gonna be like 'remember how our son's corpse washed on shore here? At least he still had most of his limbs.' Or,” Shane continued, “think of the people who will find your body.” He pointed up at the cliffs. “A family's here on a picnic, and suddenly- 'wheeeee-sphclutz' dead person middle of their picnic table.”

Ryan let out a laugh. “Jesus Christ, Shane.”

“Just sayin'. What? How would you do it then?”

“You're asking me how I'd- kill myself? I-” Ryan trailed off.

Shane looked at the ocean. It was huge and tumultuous and deep. He had always been drawn to the dark waters for as long as he could remember, but most of his memories were of the small cozy ponds with still waters he had made his nest in.

But a wide wild ocean? With its dark hidden depths?

The weight of mountains worth of water over you?

“Personally I think I'd just-” he pointed at the waves- “walk to the ocean. Disappear into the waves. Just. Gone.”

“That's- dark. Morbid.”

_Oh. I see what he is thinking._

Shane shrugged. “Nah it'll be fun. Maybe I'll swallow like- a key or a tiny toy soldier. For the pathologists! Imagine them trying to work it all out! You see? A small key? A toy soldier? What's it all about? I can drive people like you insane from beyond the grave!”

Shane turned to Ryan. The human was giving him a weird look.

Shane grinned. “Don't worry, I have no intentions of actually doing it. If anything, I'd love to go down, well if not fighting- _for_ something. Maybe on one of our trips. You know- actually you know what I'd love?”

“Hn?”

“I'd love my last words to be 'keep rolling'. Promise to do that. If I get my lungs ripped out by a ghoul or a-”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Shane smiled. “You'd finally get your ghost proof! But nah...” He winked. “I'm planning to live forever, baby.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you need a ride?” Ryan asked. “TJ is gonna go back to the office anyway to return the equipment. I'll head home in my car but I can take you back- if you happen to live on the way.”

Shane nodded. Made sense.

He climbed into the car with some difficulty. Whoever had sat in the passenger's seat before him had apparently been literally half his height.

“Did you have a fun Christmas? Fun Holidays?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah. I don't care much for the holiday. Just marathoned the Die Hard movies.”

“That's fun! It's a fun tradition.”

“Yeah.”

Shane gave Ryan a look. He was giving him that kinda weird vibe again Shane had trouble figuring out.

“Did your dad like the balls?”

“Yeah. The Pope Balls were a big hit.”

“Great.”

A silence fell until the car stopped in front of Shane's apartment building.

Ryan patted his steering wheel, avoiding looking at him. “So. Goodbye.”

Shane stepped out of the car. “See ya!”

“Okay.”

As soon as Shane had closed the apartment door behind himself his phone rang.

_Ryan._

Immediately suspicious, he raised the phone to his ear. “Hi.”

“Listen, dude, I totally forgot I had a thing to give you. Slipped my mind.”

Shane froze. “What?”

“It's not much. I'm gonna come over just quick, OK?"

"Sure," Shane told Ryan.

Only when he ended the call it occurred to him he could have told him 'no'. _Should_ have told him 'no'. If Ryan were to see his apartment like this it might be... Suspicious. As a someone who had no need for sleep, or food or any of those things, Shane had felt no need to furnish his tiny ratty apartment in any way. Apart from his computer and TV (which, as well as having an address had been his main reason for having an apartment in the first place) it had been easiest to just not particularly bother.

Some of his clothes were in the closet. That was normal. He threw one of his shirts on the floor.

That was... Something. A bachelor pad.

He was interrupted by the doorbell.

Immediately followed by feverish knocking.

"Jesus Christ-" Ryan barged inside as soon as the door opened. "You live in a dangerous part of town. I am not leaving my car here for long."

"It's cheap," Shane told him, truthfully. “Also yeah you shouldn't.”

Ryan stared at the empty apartment. "Uh."

"A burglary," Shane said.

Ryan lifted an eyebrow. "Uh. Okay."

"Just came home. They took everything."

"Even your bed."

Shane flashed him a smile. "Yeap!"

"But not your Playstation."

"Nope!"

"Oh, okay. Of course."

Ryan seemed like he didn't want to press the issue.

"Listen. I had...”

He was holding a package. “I was- I thought it was a fun joke but now I...”

The package was pushed at Shane. “Here. Happy holidays. Whatever.”

A wave of anxiety washed over Shane and for once it wasn't all Ryan.

This was a set-up.

Ryan had set this up so he could see his apartment. So he'd be invited in. To snoop.

Anger flared in Shane.

He quickly pushed it down.

He could do this. This wasn't a big deal.

Ryan had gotten the better of him for now but-

_I never told him my address._

And yet Ryan had driven there like he knew exactly where he lived.

He had done some snooping indeed.

Must have been illegal, right? He probably got it from work. They were pretty much the only ones who did have Shane's home address.

_Oh good. I can use this._

Shane bet he could just call him out on this and absolutely wreck the man. He could shame Ryan. Threaten to get him in trouble.

Make him feel guilty.

Was it worth it? Did he think he was some kind of a master detective? If Shane called him out on _that,_ mocked him...

Shane filed it in his mind to use for later.

The best case scenario was holding this over his head but not too much...

Ryan looked like he didn't know where to look. “I thought it was a funny joke but I think now that I- if I think about it- it maybe wasn't. Um.”

“Oh. Okay.” Shane stared at the gift. Maybe it was a slightly offensive joke gift. He could work with that too. Make Ryan feel bad for hurting his feelings.

Shane unwrapped the package and let the wrapping paper fall onto the floor. “It's an electric toothbrush.”

“I didn't know what to get you and I thought it'd be- it's one my dad recommends and- sorry.”

“No, that's. That's cool.”

“Okay, so. I should go. My car and-”

“Thanks.” Shane waved the toothbrush. “I'll treasure this.”

Ryan looked at him and Shane could feel him gathering all the courage he had. Ryan opened is mouth. And then closed it. And opened it again.

_He looks like a terrified fish._

“There's a- I know there's an IKEA nearby. Wanna go- I have a car, you could take advantage of this. We could go to for a quick trip to. IKEA. In case the burglars don't bring your- bed back. If you are having hard time with money I can- listen the toothbrush wasn't great- it was a bit, that doesn't count. I can at least get you a mattress, OK?”

“Please. Stop.”

Ryan snapped his mouth shut.

Shane stared at him. He was terrified, and anxious, but yet there was that determination again.

Determination that was, against Shane's better judgment, drawing him in. So he nodded. “Okay, I will go to IKEA with you. You're right. I should take advantage of this.”

“Great. Let's go while hopefully my car still has all of its tires.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Wait. Your legs are like eight feet.”

Shane only walked faster, letting his long steps carry him through the store. “Oh I forgot. You want to stay here forever? Forever trapped amongst hallways of Umlauts.” Shane threw a pillow onto their cart before moving along.

“I had a list.” Ryan had to run to keep up. “When I first moved out. Bed first. Humans spend like a third, or I guess a quarter if you're me, of their life sleeping. Gotta have a good bed.”

“I'm fine with a mattress. We gotta make it fit in your car,” Shane reminded him.

He still hadn't forgiven Ryan.

No one had visited his apartment. Especially no one from _work_.

Shane hoped it didn't show how he was seething. He'd find a way to get back at Bergara for this. He stared at a potted plant and set it in the cart. He'd make Ryan pay for it and then forget to water it and that'd show him.

If he forced his way to his apartment again he'd see his plant was dead.

And then Ryan would feel bad.

“I got something really good for our next episode.”

“Oh?” Shane eyed the shelves. He probably could use a shelf for his video games.

“It will be great.”

“If you don't keep up it will be about that case of people getting lost in a haunted IKEA forever. And it will be hosted by me, alone. Because I mysteriously and tragically lost my co-host.”

“What case- I don't remember that- that probably wasn't a thing, Shane.”

“I read it on the Internet. You know, where the majority of _your_ theories come from.”

“I do my research on _reliable_ -”

Shane twirled around. “FORSÅ?”

“What?”

He thrust the lamp at Ryan, getting some joy out of the way he jumped. “The lamp. Opinions?”

“Great?”

“I'll trust your taste, getting this one. Go on, what will the next episode be on? I'm interested!”

It felt like that was somehow a safer topic, actually. Safer than lamps. Shane felt completely out-of-place here. Or rather doing something like this with Ryan felt like a weird disturbance in his cozy little life. And yet it wasn't really _bad._ He could maybe even have a rug to sit on? Some plates? To put on a table? Not that he'd use them but he had never had plates before and owning some felt like entering some bizarrely titillating unknown territory. He could be someone who owns plates. He could own _tableware_. This whole day hadn't turned out like Shane had expected and the fact he didn't know what to think about this was more annoying than even Ryan forcing his way into his home.

“We're going ghost-hunting.”

That snapped Shane out of his tableware-related reverie. “Oh... Good.”

“And it's- A place I know is haunted. Personally.”

_Really, now?_

“Looking forward to it, Bergara.”

Shane looked at the time on his phone. He had been planning to be in and out of the store in half an hour. But-

“I think I could use some cups. Bowls. A spoon. Perhaps even a _spice rack_.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

"Let me preface this by saying that it's... It's something."

Shane gave Ryan a look. He had told Shane he had something important to show him, and based on the fact he wanted to film his reactions this was likely for Unsolved.

Although Shane was more suspicious of Ryan these days. He wasn't convinced he wasn't going to try to trap him again in some way.

"Go on. Consider my interest fully piqued."

"You remember me telling you about the event that made me believe in ghosts? About ten years ago?"

"Oh I- I remember that.” Shane tapped his chin, looking at the distance. “The story had a haunted ship and all. Grade-A spooky origin story material."

"I actually managed to find the footage. It's- Well I'll let it speak for itself. Prepare to be amazed."

Ryan hit play on his laptop.

Shane leaned in closer, careful to keep in view of the camera recording his reactions. "I'm gettin' chills seeing the actual toothbrush that's been so often referenced-"

Ryan interrupted him, feverishly gesturing at the screen. "Look at- see look at it. You can see-"

"It already happened?"

"Yeah it already happened."

"Not boding well considering I didn't even catch it."

"You were focusing on the wrong side of the screen."

"Yeah."

And here he had actually thought Ryan had some real evidence.

"The way you described it to me, I thought it had an actual- like I was imagining the toothbrush or toothpaste or whatever just flying across the room! Not vaguely stumbling onto the floor. Never has been a piece of footage has been so falsely hyped up since James Cameron's Avatar."

"It clearly was moved by an outside force! Watch it again!"

The footage failed to be any more impressive after a second viewing.

"There's definitely a force at play there tho-"

"And what is that?"

"Gravity."

"Okay so maybe I remembered it as bit of a- it was very impactful. You weren't there."

"Yeah. Sorry, not convinced."

"But, we are going to go there and maybe, just maybe, we will come face to face with something."

"Oh?"

Ryan nodded and Shane basked in the glow of his excitement.

"We're gonna go to Queen Mary, and we're gonna sleep at the ship."

"Cool, cool. Hopefully we will see something. Maybe I will have my very own haunted Ziploc bag moment. And then I will be forever terrified of toilets."

 

* * *

 

 

"You know I will say this is a beautiful sunset though," Ryan noted. "If there's one thing I can take solace in today."

"It's a nice sunset. Enjoy it Ryan it's gonna be the last one you'll ever see," Shane said, pulling out his phone to look up details about the ship they were about to board.

Ryan laughed and Shane could feel his nervousness evaporating.

That seemed to always do it, and Shane was curious why.

Presumably when Shane presented an even worse option, turned it into a joke, Ryan's own fears seemed lesser? Not as serious.

There was something about that idea and how it related to the overarching theory Shane was starting to have on Ryan Bergara and what made him tick.

Shane watched Ryan raise his camera to film the pier. Shane was vaguely aware of TJ behind them, getting footage of the two of them, and again he felt like there was some kind of a revelation to be had there if he just dug in a bit deeper.

Shane raised his phone to snap a quick picture of Ryan. It wasn't a good picture. Slightly out of focus. But that too felt important in some way he probably should think about later.

Ryan turned towards Shane. And looked behind him. "TJ, I think I want some footage of the ship from this angle-"

TJ stepped forward. "Gotcha."

Whatever had been there in the moment had disappeared, the spell broken.

Shane turned to look at the Queen Mary again. It was impressive, Shane supposed. He did like water and was finding oceans more and more interesting.

“Into the belly of the beast!” he said, grinning at Ryan.

* * *

 

Shane and TJ followed Ryan to the cabin B 484.

Ryan looked around. "This room hasn't changed one bit, it's exactly the same."

It looked like a hotel room to Shane. He had expected something a bit more... Nautical. Maybe hammocks.

He lay on the bed, and reached out. Nothing. Nothing immediately obvious at least.

Ryan poked his face. "I was laying on the bed when this-" He pulled his hand away. "Dude, you're _cold._ "

Shane opened his eye. "I don't have a lot of fat. You have _seen_ me, my body type can be best described as 'scarecrowish'. That and bad circulation in my limbs since all my blood goes to my head to feed my immense brain. The downside? I get cold easily."

"Man I suddenly realize why you wear so many layers all the time. And why your head is so huge. It's sure full of _something_. Though this cabin _is_ freezing."

Shane pulled back into himself. He should be more careful with that. "So someone or something kept poking you in the face throughout the night and you just... Didn't say anything?"

"I was scared!"

"I would have gotten up and asked my friends 'hey what the fuck are you doing?'"

"Well it was very scary."

Shane sat up. "Well maybe we'll get some pokes in. Hey ghosts! Feel free to poke me in my big dumb face all night long!"

"It's a big target," Ryan laughed.

"It is!"

Maybe he should even get Ryan a ghost or two. Help a buddy out. Shane was well-fed and any terror he'd squeeze out of Ryan would be more than enough to compensate. It'd be fitting too somehow.

Shane stretched on the bed. Little 17-year old Ryan had laid right here ten years ago and had experienced something. Whether it had been a ghost he had managed to pull to himself, or just nightmares, he had felt something.

Little Ryan Bergara, who had been a totally different person back then, and yet the same person...

"What?"

Shane hadn't realized he had been staring at him.

"I was just thinking. Of teen you, here," he answered, truthfully. "If you would have turned out to be a totally different person otherwise. Without your ghost experience."

"I probably would. I guess I'd still be making... I wanted to be a filmmaker. We would be making this show about true crime only, I guess?"

_Would there even be 'we' in this? I probably would have had no reason to stay with a crime show..._

It was an odd thought. That an experience Ryan had had as a teen would indirectly influence Shane in the present. With some shock Shane realized Ryan had had friends and family for a long time. Friends and family who had made him into what he was now. Shane had before been aware of the people at the office. Of course he had, he knew their fears intimately, so he considered himself very much a people-person. But he hadn't really _thought_ of it. But Ryan, with his parents, and their parents, and so on, a long line of humans who had all came together to eventually make Ryan Bergara who was then made into the man he was now by people he had met-

Shane stood up. "So, let's check out this famous haunted bathroom."

 

* * *

 

 

 

"Are you scared right now?" Shane asked as they headed towards the bow of the ship. Although he was more curious as to how Ryan saw his own mental state.

"Yeah! You're not fucking scared right now?"

Shane slightly reached out to TJ. He wasn't. Then again he probably had no memories associated with this place. But still-

"Are you just afraid of anything that's _old?_ "

"Dude do you have any idea where we are right now?"

"It's a boat!"

"This is where the ship struck Curacoa." Ryan pointed downwards. "That's the cargo hold. They used to keep POWs down there."

The ship had certainly seen its share of death and suffering. It did seem like a pretty good place to summon ghosts. Shane wondered if there _had_ been something in that cabin all those years ago. It wouldn't have really surprised him if Ryan had managed to tap into some power accidentally to act as a medium. A lucky coincidence maybe? But Ryan did seem to have a knack for it.

Maybe they could experiment a little?

Shane decided to make a little suggestion. "Maybe we could try one of those- what do you call them- the spelling things. You know, you let the piece of wood move on a board-"

"A spirit board?"

"Yeah! It did work in the Exorcist!"

"Which is why we're not using one! I'm not going to- to use one, especially not in a haunted location! Besides, I have other equipment. A bit more high tech."

Ryan pulled out his thermal camera and before Shane could react, it was aimed at him.

To his relief Ryan didn't seem to spot anything weird.

Shane glared at the thermal camera. He'd have to keep an eye on that.

"You think you gonna catch a ghost with that?"

"Maybe. Or spot animals or- something. So at least we can debunk noises and movement. But it _is_ a documented fact- and uh, you're gonna laugh at me for this- that spiritual energy- that kinda thing manifesting will lower the temperature. I felt it in the Sallie house."

"Where does this come from? Who decided it was like this?"

"I don't know! Paranormal investigators! They investigated it."

Shane really did wonder. It wasn't that way with all demons, and from what he recalled of ghosts they were just cold compared to living people. With demons it depended on their base nature. Shane remembered the hot flames of the Goatman as he pulled humans down to his Hell. But cold waters had always felt like the most _him_ , and whenever he let his true self out of the human shell it sucked the warmth from his surroundings.

He shrugged, doing his best to sound dismissive. "Well I'm sure this is based on some top notch parasciencey research."

"Normally I'm against asking, uh, communicating with the ghosts but if I'm truly gonna be actually an investigator in this I have to, right?" Ryan looked at Shane.

"Yeah, do it. Go on, Ryan."

"Um."

"Be direct," Shane told him.

He thought of trying to pull out a ghost but the thermal camera made him hesitate. It probably would pick up on him using his powers...

And Ryan was freaking out already at the shadows anyway.

Lovely.

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually, they made their way to the supposedly most haunted cabin.

"What would your younger self think of you now?" Shane asked, settling down on the sleeping bag as the two of them prepared to spend the night.

"He'd think I was an idiot."

"No but I mean- young little baby Bergara. Before he had his defining bathroom moment."

"Please don't call it that."

"I'm serious, I mean-" Shane gestured at the room. "I'm imagining- Did you have more pictures of you on that trip?"

"Sure. I was thinking of taking pictures of myself now in some of the same places. Wait a sec-"

He pulled out his phone and showed the image of himself.

"Oh look at you! Tiny Ryan Bergara all scrawny and unghost-spookified. With his camera! Aww."

"Yeah. I was about to- I think I was just graduating high school."

He swiped to the next photo to him sitting next to an another boy his age. "Here's Alvin. He shared the cabin with me."

"Ah yes the famous Alvin. Who slept through the mysterious ghost poking incident. You still in contact?"

"Not really. I think I found him on Facebook a few years back. We used to be best friends but you know how it is, college happened. I think he lives in Minnesota these days. It's- it's just you know how it is. We went to different colleges, I think he got married. You lose contact."

Shane nodded. "Yeah. I know."

Ryan pointed at the other boy. "Casey though? We have some mutual friends still. We hang out sometimes."

"That's nice."

Shane stared at the two boys who must also now be older, and different. Doing their own thing, out there in the world.

"But I meant- like you tried to find ghosts, right? Would you have slept here if given the chance?"

Ryan let out a laugh. "Probably not. I dunno, I feel like young me would have taken one look at this place and gone 'yeah I'm not gonna sleep on a dirty floor when I could be sitting on a nice bed drinking the bottle of beer Casey got from- Shit you gotta promise me you won't tell my mom about that."

"I promise, I promise. My lips are sealed," Shane said, adding 'underage drinking' to his growing list of things he could use against Ryan. "Anyway, look at you now! A proper ghoul hunter. Sitting in dust that will probably give you lung cancer. All to find ghosts. And get views on Youtube."

"Yeah. I don't feel as accomplished as I probably should."

 

* * *

 

"Just focus on how tired you are," Shane told Ryan for what felt like the billionth time.

Shane lay still, pretending to sleep. Or pretending trying to sleep when a noise came from the outside of the cabin.

"Well what the fuck is going on?" Ryan asked.

"It's some animals fighting outside," Shane told him. Animals that had no souls were not as easy for him to sense as humans but it definitely was no demon or a ghost.

"It sounds like static," Ryan argued.

"No they're outside..."

Shane closed his eyes, bundled up in his sleeping bag, took a deep breath and relaxed.

Yeah there was definitely nothing more than a few cats outside... He dove deeper, sinking his consciousness downwards, being called by the waters under the ship. For a moment his human body felt vertigo and it felt like the world was flipped upside-down. Doing his best to ignore his human senses he reached out to the depths- He stopped. No, he wasn't here for that...

He reached throughout the ship, only vaguely aware of his human body as his mind snaked throughout the boat, touching upon the souls of the numerous people on it, hiding in the shadows, observing. A thought occurred to it as it remembered the bathroom incident Ryan has described. It dived into the water coursing through the ship, into the pipes, forcing its way through the bathroom faucets, turning showers on-

It could get used to this. Why had it never occurred it to take a ship? Travel? Make its nest into the bones of a seafaring boat, turn it into a haunted ghost ship, feed on the terror of the people it crossed paths with-

It sunk further down splitting its power throughout the ship, sensing the water beyond, calling for it-

Something was wrong.

It stopped, suddenly aware he had forgotten something. He felt around the ship, feeling lost.

He heard it, like an echo.

 

D i d          y o u        h e a r   i t   ?

 

Ryan.

His body.

The thing that was Shane Madej most of the time these days reached to his body.

Where was it?

He had been away for too long, gone too far, he had forgotten where it was and the sweet darkness of the cold sea called it-

 

S h a n e

 

Yes, Shane. That was what it was called these days. He calmed down and focused to the sound he had sensed? Heard? Yes. Heard. That helped him locate his ears and with that rest of his body. It was still breathing. Good. It almost looked like it was asleep.

 

I    t h i n k   I   h e a r d   a-

 

Shane settled back into his body with some difficulty. How long had he been away?

"Shane? I heard a knocking sound, are you awake?"

Shane grumbled. "No..."

He turned around, still settling into his body. Had he spread himself out too far? Or was it because the body had done something similar to falling asleep while most of him was away? He spoke with some difficulty:

"You've somehow tricked me into not being upset that you're still talking but- ah- I'm gonna go to sleep I'm gonna try again."

He took in a deep breath, and almost gagged at the dust in the abandoned cabin. Yeah he was back in.

Ryan giggled and something ran through Shane's human body. Like there was something weird in his chest. Probably he had breathed in rat poop.

“I don't know what you did.” This was somehow Ryan's fault. “I'm angry again.”

That was a lie, of course, and Ryan didn't seem to take it seriously either.

Shane _was_ annoyed and wasn't sure why.

But he didn't really care to dwell on it for now.

Shane closed his eyes and felt around, this time only focusing on the human next to him.

This was enough for now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Casey and Alvin were Ryan's friends mentioned in the episode. I made up some things about them, I don't even know I spelled their names right. I rather didn't even try to find out more about the actual people in question so.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the fact that you can just google pics of ducks is enough to make you believe you can make a difference in the world

"This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we discuss the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman," Ryan spoke into the camera. "Or as you may know it, the case of O.J. Simpson."

"Also, I was a little boy when this happened," Shane hurried to inform Ryan.

He had mentioned the case they'd be discussing to Shane, with the assumption it was something he should know well, so for once Shane had done his homework. He almost wished Ryan would notice and appreciate the care he had put to this, but then again, Ryan not realizing anything was off about his co-host was his reward.

These murders were something Shane had heard of in passing anyway, seen it referenced and parodied in things, but of course he hadn't really been aware of human drama back when it happened.

From what he remembered he hadn't even been anything resembling a human at the time. But he did know how old the man whose identity he had stolen had been.

"I mean for anyone our age he's just-" Shane waved his hand, hoping Ryan would finish the thought.

"Yeah I'd never actually even knew he played football," Ryan said.

He went on to describe the details of the case, and when he got to the slow speed car chase he turned to Shane: "Do you remember that?"

Shane had watched a documentary on the murders just last night in preparation, so he was aware of it. He wondered if Ryan was trying to trap him.

_Well too bad for him I did my homework._

So he shrugged.

"I actually don't. I think I was not too on top of the news cycle then 'cause I was watching _Power Rangers_ or something."

That was a normal thing to do for a child that age. He had even checked _Power Rangers_ was a thing back then.

Ryan continued, and Shane wondered if he had been suspicious at all... If anything, Ryan was feeling a bit off in a different way. He wasn't terribly focused on Shane.

"Just try to picture one of the most famous people in the world trying to sneak into TSA with a glued-on mustache and thinking that it's gonna work out. Hah!"

Shane gave Ryan a look. Even his laugh sounded forced.

"I can't believe he was even considering it."

"It's a little- juvenile," Shane told him.

The vibe he was getting from Ryan was just discomfort at this point. Maybe it was the racial aspect of the case. That sort of a thing was probably something Ryan thought about.

"This episode is just bumming me out, Ryan!" Shane threw his hands in the air.

"Yeah I know."

"This is a very depressing case."

"This is the worst."

Shane had expected to enjoy it much more than he did. He had prepared so he could perfectly play his human role. He had thought it'd be fun. Especially if Ryan _did_ suspect something... Drawing his attention in, and then making a fool of the human and his suspicions had held a certain appeal to him. But instead it was just... weird and awkward. So once the filming was over Shane was more than happy to leave. Of course they still had the on-location bit to cover but they had scheduled that for an another day. He watched Ryan get up.

_Maybe I should ask him how he is or..?_

Ryan walked to the cameras to talk to Mark, their cameraman for today.

_Maybe later._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shane set down his video game controller. He couldn't stop thinking back to the events on the ship. He was feeling weirdly antsy again. Was he hungry? No, it wasn't that.

He lifted his phone up and stared at the picture he had taken of Ryan. There he was, concentrated on getting footage of the ship.

He pulled up Ryan's Facebook. He had mentioned finding Alvin there. Going through his posts eventually brought Shane to who he supposed was Casey...

Shane stared at the image of him and Ryan and some other guys he didn't know (how many guys did Ryan know?) at some kind of a party (to how many parties did Ryan go to?).

Why would you just- go online and post pictures of you sitting next to Ryan? Who wanted to look at that?

Not Shane, that was for sure. It was all very uninteresting.

But at least now he knew Ryan's birth date. And maybe if he was lucky he could dig up info about his family and-

Shane slammed his laptop closed. It felt weird, going through his social media for this.

Ryan was more active on Twitter these days anyway, it seemed. And he followed Shane there.

Shane had far more followers on Twitter than he had used to... Hopefully that wouldn't become an issue.

He liked ten of Ryan's incomprehensible tweets about sports.

There. That sent a clear message. Shane wasn't entirely certain _what_ message but one had been sent.

_What am I doing?_

Shane noticed the shelf they had bought, still sitting in the corner of his room. He had only opened the packaging and taken the parts out. Stared at them for a bit and piled them up in the corner of the room.

He could call Ryan to ask him to help him with it. Yeah that sounded like a risk-free idea.

"Hello?" Ryan's voice answered.

"Ryan. I was wondering if you had time? For a thing."

"What? Now? It's 9 PM dude."

"Are you asleep?"

"No-"

Shane could hear a voice, or several. Ryan was hanging out with someone. Maybe it was his girlfriend. Helen.

"Is it about Unsolved?"

"Yes, actually, it is,” Shane said without thinking. He cursed in his mind. “It can wait."

_For me to actually think of something._

"Yeah though. E-mail it to me, OK?"

"Yeah, it's not. It's not anything dire or... I was just wondering about something. See ya."

Shane closed the phone, vaguely annoyed again.

 

* * *

 

They sat in the car, outside the location of the O.J. murder scene. Shane couldn't imagine they were getting any good footage here. Just two guys being awkward.

Then again that probably was the main appeal of the show to some people.

Shane watched Ryan nervously tap the steering wheel.

"Ryan, why did you choose a case like this?"

Ryan shrugged. "It's famous. I grew up hearing about it. It happened close by- I guess it didn't affect you the same way, it didn't happen in your back yard-"

Shane frowned. He leaned back in his seat. "I was but a tiny tyke back in Chicago back then. Playing at the Bean with my Power Rangers action figures, pretending it was a giant alien they had to fight... But no... I did of course hear about it and the details later, it was depressing, Ryan."

"Lot of crime is."

"But this one was not really unsolved either, was it?"

He could sense Ryan was being Weird again in a way that was very Ryan. It hadn't been enjoyment exactly that had driven him to this but...

Duty? Obligation?

"Did someone request you do O.J. Simpson or?"

Ryan shook his head. "It was my idea. And I wanted to do something- I don't know."

For a second Shane thought it was maybe masochism. Ryan had definitely made himself uncomfortable on purpose before.

"Did you not like it?" Ryan asked.

Shane shrugged. "I'm fine doing it. Just didn't feel like something that was... easy to joke about, you know?"

"If you felt too uncomfortable doing it I'd understand," Ryan said.

He was nervous again. Ryan was nervous and anxious all the time and yet he still did all these things. Shane had thought he had had a some kind of a working theory on that with the ghosts and aliens. It did make sense a human would feel the need to connect to the unknown considering what they were. Human souls were little flickering flashes in the grand scheme of things, rushing through life and the world and then to the unknown. But more time Shane spent with Ryan the more it was starting to feel Ryan was more complicated than that.

Shane watched Ryan fiddle with his glasses and stare somewhere at the horizon.

"Uncomfortable?" Shane asked, trying to win time.

Ryan shrugged.

He certainly wanted something from Shane. He always wanted something from Shane but was weirdly afraid to ask. And now he was waiting for Shane to say something-

"I would rather do more fun episodes," Shane said. "That's what I was thinking about, earlier. You always put the 'what unsolved mystery you want to see next?' question at the end of the episodes, right? Well I got a request. Something where no one dies. For once. A robbery. A disappearance, even. I don't know... Not depressing?"

"I do have a bunch of ideas," Ryan said.

He did visibly relax. Shane eyed his figure.

"Have you slept lately? As in, at all?"

He could sense Ryan's anxiety spike again. At this point Shane was wondering if it made any sense for him to try to decipher what even caused this sorta thing. Ryan got anxious at everything.

And yet Shane couldn't help trying.

"I've been busy," Ryan said. "That's all."

"You look like you're half-asleep. Should you be driving?"

Ryan looked at him. There was a weird other kind of emotion bubbling to the surface. He gave Shane a tired smile. “It's fine.”

Shane stared.

_This is weird and I don't think I like this._

"So, tell me more about this case..?"

 

* * *

 

Next week, like he had requested, Shane got his fun mystery episode.

The case of D.B. Cooper was far more enjoyable for Ryan, and that made it more effortless for Shane too.

He didn't feel like he had to constantly watch himself, instead falling into the easy dynamic with Ryan. It was like a game, Shane keeping score on how many genuine laughs he got out of his co-host. And the subject matter made it easier this time.

A basically victimless crime. Even with the plane hijacking. Cooper felt like a weird mystery man, a mythical figure.

Shane entertained the thought of him actually being a demon. Just flying away after jumping from the plane.

Now _that_ was a theory. He almost suggested it to Ryan but in the end bit his tongue.

If Ryan wasn't bringing it up he wouldn't start suggesting it. He was fine with Ryan eventually figuring things out but he wouldn't make it easy for him.

"No matter what happened to him, he's sort of a man of myth now, yeah?"

Ryan nodded. "I suppose. He's- not exactly an urban legend but more- you know. A legend."

"My real main theory? He's Tommy Wiseau."

"I don't think the ages match. As if this is the only issue with the theory."

"You're telling me you actually believe Wiseau is a- a human? A human being born on our human planet?"

Well, Shane knew he was (he had actually checked when he had visited a local con a few years back and contrary to popular belief the man was 100% _Homo sapiens_ ) but he was slightly surprised Ryan wasn't offering any wild theories on his extraterrestrial and/or vampiric origins.

But nevertheless, Shane's trap was closing on around Ryan. He had tempted the human to do an episode on something like this, knowing it'd give him an advantage. Joking about this was easier. Making Ryan laugh over this was easier. And now the human was certainly enjoying himself, just like Shane had planned him to.

Ryan let out a genuine wheezing laugh and Shane smiled at that victory.

* * *

 

 

Shane leaned back on his mattress and closed his eyes.

"Humans love telling stories," Steve had told him once.

Shane relaxed, intentionally reaching for that sleep-like state he had gone to on Queen Mary. But this time he stayed in his body, trying to chase a memory inside his own mind.

It had been only a few centuries but now it felt ages ago. Ever since he had taken this form his days had been filled with so much _stuff_ every moment felt equivalent to decades spent in his cozy little pond where he had mostly just existed, watched the birds through the water, and occasionally dragged an unwary swimmer underwater. He got more done in an hour, it felt sometimes, than he had in a century. Being able to open his laptop and type anything he could think of into google and get countless results, all of that information at his fingertips, it was quite a lot, really, wasn't it? Back then he had pretty reliably been able to see ducks, and seagulls, and ospreys. But now? You could just pick any species of bird, even ones that didn't come close to water, and spend one human lifetime looking at images of them online. Video even. Cartoon human versions of them with human dicks. At times really enough to completely overwhelm a guy.

And that wasn't even getting to the _real_ stuff.

Humans were dangerous. Best enjoyed in small dozes or through several filters. They were staticky little things. Slumber all night, get up in the morning, and believe six inaccurate things before breakfast. (Or something like that.)

He felt he understood Ryan a bit more now. Your short time in this world probably felt more significant than it was when it was full of, well, everything. No wonder you'd believe you could leave your mark in the world, that anything you did mattered at all when you had the power to just go look at a duck whenever you wanted to. Human existence was chaotic and weird. And short.

But a demon like Shane? He could have this all and keep doing it _forever_.

Just tread lightly...

Steve had understood humans better, back when they had known each other. The demon that had become Shane Madej eventually had back then had very little interest in humans and their stories and beliefs and lies beyond what they offered to it in nourishment.

“Humans love telling stories,” Steve had told it, showing off the paintings depicting him. The product of some poor monk who had been visited by the Goatman.

There had been something else Steve had told it, or it had figured out.

But Shane couldn't remember.

Shane closed his eyes again and relaxed. Instead of spreading out of his body he curled up inside, deep into himself, trying to think back. It was difficult to remember... He had a feeling he would need to leave his human form behind to fully connect to those memories.

It had been a sunny day, it had felt out of place there, watching the humans dance and laugh. Shane tried to insert the mental image of his present self in his memories. His memories connected. He had been barely physical back then, hovering there next to the Goatman. More of an idea of a bird than anything else.

Had the other demon really been as good at imitating a human as Shane remembered? His memory wasn't clear. That probably was a red flag of some kind.

He hadn't thought much of many things Steve had said at the time.

He did remember believing Steve understood humans in a way he had thought he never would.

Steve had leaned to the demon, and spoken in human language, forcing it to pull the knowledge into itself. The feeling of human language had felt alien and dangerous as it had invaded its mind.

"Come on, take on a human form, claim a name, and we can have some real fun."

It hadn't understood what Steve had meant. It probably still didn't. It had told Steve no already. It didn't like what was going on and didn't understand why. The sunlight hurt, and it wanted to crawl into the dark waters and rest and never listen or speak in human tongues. What did it care? The only thing it needed from a human was the terror of being pulled underwater, the feeling of lungs being filled with cold liquid. Why complicate things?

And yet it followed Steve around anyway. Listened to the things the Goatman whispered to its ear about humans and demons and connections and bridges and the great plans they had. Understanding more and more. Being more and more visible in its bird-like form.

It had sensed something in the air back then as it watched the expression on Steve's increasingly human face as he watched the crowd gather to the town square and dance until they breathed their last breath.

It didn't care. Nor did it know that humans would remember these events 500 years later as a funny anecdote. But it was fascinated by the interest the other demon showed.

In the present it was difficult to tell what feelings, if any, had been involved.

Steve had felt some kinda way about humanity, so it had followed him.

Steve had convinced it to follow him to the demonic meetings. So it had.

Looking back to it now it was probably curiosity. And something else Shane wasn't willing to name.

It had watched demons enter humans, and drag them to Hell, claim them, bind them, not only consume their souls as nourishment but doom them, and it had fled-

Shane opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling, disoriented.

He took in a deep breath, feeling his body. All there, the right number of limbs and all.

He wished he had paid more attention back then. He remembered all the great plans the others had had only vaguely now.

Stepping out of the shadows, claiming the souls of humanity, reigning over the short-lived humans-

Once more, Shane reached out to the city around him.

And felt no one.

He was alone.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm preeetty sure at least at this point the episodes aren't shot in the order they were broadcast in but i'm pretending they were

“We need to talk.”

Shane looked up from his work, feigning mild surprise. As if he hadn't been aware of Ryan approaching him. Ryan had been doing- _something_ lately. Shane had been following the human closely at the office, occasionally experimentally poking at his emotions, as if he was waiting for some kinda bubble to burst eventually. Something to rise to the surface perhaps. Whatever Ryan had in mind for the next episode of Unsolved was big, probably. Today Ryan had been sort of weirdly hovering close to Shane's desk and only approached Shane once Curly went on his lunch break.

“Is this going to be about the next episode of Unsolved?” Shane asked.

“Not exactly.”

_Oh._

Somehow it hadn't occurred to Shane Ryan might have other non-Unsolved related projects under work.

“I have been talking about things, uh, pitching things with the management, the budget, I need to get your input now-”

Excitement. Anxiety.

“On what?”

All of his attention was on Shane.

“I have been in the talks of making Unsolved a regular series. Bigger budget, more crew, the works.”

“Oh, cool.”

Shane bristled at the idea of a bigger crew. More people getting involved might mean more trouble for him. More people to keep an eye on.

“A more regular schedule too. It's going to be a commitment.”

Really just him and Ryan was ideal.

“Ryan, I already am committed to this project.”

“Good, good.”

Some of Ryan's behavior suddenly made a bit more sense to Shane. If this had been a thing he had been planning for a while now, the show suddenly had more stakes.

“I mean, come on. I mostly just show up,” Shane told him. Well. That was technically true. Although keeping an eye on Ryan's emotions was a full-time job.

“I have been thinking- Of doing more Supernatural episodes for now. They were popular. Actually, the idea I am pitching is that we'd have two separate kinds of seasons, True Crime for things like O.J. Simpson or the Zodiac killer, Supernatural for things like ghosts. Maybe include other kind of supernatural phenomena too, aliens, cryptids, maybe things like can humans have psychic powers, 8 to 10 episodes in a season.”

Shane tried to hide his excitement. “Going on location?”

Well, it was probably for the best to show _some_ excitement. “That's cool. I'm excited. To go to some spooky houses. Or what kind of places you have in mind?”

“Uh I got a list. Lot of it is, granted, going to depend on the budget negotiations. I have some non-US locations I'd love to do an episode on but unfortunately. Money is an issue.”

“Well, America is big. I haven't been to everywhere on it. I bet there might be some ghosts hiding in their holes. In their ghostly hidey holes. In, say, Arkansas.”

“Well, let's hope so. Though, I do also have some plans to go after your family members.”

Shane stared at Ryan. “Huh?”

He was presumably doing a bit, right?

So Shane squinted his eyes suspiciously. “The Chicago mob?”

“You got family members in the mob?”

Shane grinned, leaning closer and whispering conspiratorially: “You didn't hear it from me, got it?”

“Oh my god now I am genuinely- that would explain a bunch- Uh, nevermind.”

 

* * *

 

 

Shane glanced at the people huddled in the conference room.

Ryan gestured him closer. “I want you to meet Devon, she'll be a part of our team from now on.”

The blonde woman offered her hand. “Devon Joralmon. I think we have met?”

Shane shook her hand. “Yeah. Shane Madej.”

“You're not exactly easy to miss.”

He nodded to her awkwardly. She was one of the people he had seen around the office but never really even spoken to.

“She'll be traveling with us,” Ryan interjected.

“Will it be a... big crew?” Shane questioned. So far the small scale of the show had fitted him just fine. As had the changing extra cameramen. It was overall just easier if it was basically just him and Ryan. It made things so much simpler.

“Unfortunately, we won't have the budget to get all of the crew to travel around the States. So on location it'll be you, me, Devon, TJ and Mark or one of them depending on the location. We need to figure out the logistics, which is why we're here now, actually.”

“Okay, cool.” Shane gave Devon a smile. “Welcome to the team. I hope you won't get eaten by ghosts.”

Devon laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

Shane slumped on the chair next to Ryan's desk, trying to seem casual.

_Fuck it, I'm his co-host it's not suspicious if I seek him out to talk about work._

“What are you working on?”

Ryan didn't look up. “I'm checking out the location, planning for... Things. It doesn't look like we can get approval for any traveling off-country but well.”

“Later maybe. Once you've become world-famous for finding ghosts! And can strong-arm Buzzfeed into giving you any funding you require. I am going to want my own personal office. With a pool. Made of gold.”

Ryan leaned back in his chair, his fingers leaving the keyboard. “Oh cool, you've it all figured out then. Though I mean, the show would be over, then, right? If we _did_ find ghosts, and you became a believer, then-”

“Oh no! I mean would you be satisfied with just finding a ghost? Then you gotta- you gotta study them, and prove... Things. Like do they- what their senses are like. Do ghosts smell things, Ryan? Do they?”

“I don't know!”

Shane gave him a smug grin. “My point exactly.”

“I guess you're right. And I mean, we do True Crime and you do... believe the crimes happened-”

“I dunno the more I think about it the more convinced I am D.B. Cooper never hijacked a plane. It's all a cover-up concocted by Tommy Wiseau.”

“Why are you pushing this? You got something against Wiseau?”

Shane gestured vaguely. “Have you _seen_ him? A human being has no business crackling pure sexual energy like that!”

Ryan shook his head. “Well, thanks for that mental image!”

“So, even if we do find ghosts, we can still turn the focus of the show into a- like we could hunt down Tommy Wiseau-”

“I am pretty sure he isn't some kind of a mysterious phantom he does have an e-mail address and like a house? I think, and all,” Ryan interjected.

“-OR it can turn into a cross country trip of us-us running from all the demons we've pissed off.”

Ryan frowned. “Wait why _we_? It's you who pisses the ghosts and demons off!”

Shane winked. “We're a package deal, baby!”

“Listen, I have a demon location or two in mind, but _only_ if you promise to be on your best behavior! No laying on pentagrams I keep having nightmares about that!”

“Really? Wait, what demon locations?”

“You'll see.”

* * *

 

 

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we explore Bobby Mackey's music world which is seemingly a normal Kentucky bar, but many believe it's actually a portal to Hell,” Ryan spoke into the camera as they sat in the car.

Shane nodded.

“As many of you know, or as many of you who watch this show know, I hate demons, and I will only do one for season. So this is my sacrifice for this season.”

Shane gave Ryan a look.

“I didn't know that was your rule.”

“It's my one rule.”

“Thanks for breaking it.”

If Ryan thought it was an odd thing to say he didn't let it show.

_Every episode of this show is a demon episode, baby._

The thought cheered Shane up a bit as they got out of the car to prepare.

It was a fun thought. A little gift from Shane to Ryan. To his show. If Ryan ever did figure out the truth it'd be like a fun little surprise. Realizing he had done this show he had been so proud of with something he despised.

“Would it have killed them to make this any closer to the city? Does it have to be on the side of a weird creepy road?” Ryan looked around.

Shane liked it there. No reason to believe there were demons, yet, but it was nice to get away from the city every now and then. It was almost like he and Ryan were there alone, just the two of them. If you ignored TJ behind them, and Devon sitting in the car, waiting for them to finish filming the opening bit.

“And the worst part is I don't even have my holy water! I went to eight churches, to try to get some holy water and I couldn't get one bit of holy water so I'm going into a demon hole with no holy water!”

“I guess you'll get eaten then,” Shane shrugged. “Pulled down the demon hole.”

“Oh I have made preparations, don't you worry about that,” Ryan said. “You'll see.”

His fear and excitement was thick in the air as they walked towards the bar. Shane lifted his hand-held camera to keep Ryan in frame, and focused just on what he saw on the screen. He had watched some of their videos on Youtube before but had found the disconnect made him uncomfortable. The Ryan on the computer screen lacked the realness of the Ryan right there next to him. It was always weirdly unsatisfying, watching him through the filtered reality he chose to put online for the audience. But now Shane made the conscious decision to pay attention to how he seemed through the camera.

Short, for one. He probably seemed shorter to the viewers than he was in real life.

They walked into the bar to greet the site representative.

“Welcome, to our little haunted corner of the world,” the woman who had introduced herself as Laura Roland said, shaking their hands.

“We're excited,” Ryan said. “We really appreciate this chance. I am already scared, so that bodes well.”

Shane was feeling nothing so far. What Shane had found out about the place had sounded promising, what with a portal to Hell, but he felt no demons or ghosts so far. Careful as not to arouse suspicion from the humans surrounding him he reached slightly to the dark.

And came up empty.

“I think we got enough footage of us walking in,” Ryan said. He turned to Mrs Roland. “If we'll do the interview here?”

Shane blinked a bit at the light filling the room and for a moment felt exposed. It was probably him just being weirdly aware of all the people involved now.

They sat across the woman and he was hit with the realization they were doing _an interview._ Like a proper investigative documentary or something.

“I could actually feel the walls shaking violently,” she explained, and Shane couldn't stop the smile creeping on his face. She had certainly felt something, or her memories of the events had been exaggerated afterwards. Shane was reminded of Ryan's toothpaste incident. Memory, even human memory, was faulty.

He was slightly relieved to get back to him and Ryan exploring the building.

“Apparently there was a trap door in here, that leads directly to the portal to Hell downstairs,” Ryan said, gesturing around.

“Yikes.”

“And they would drop bodies down that.”

“To feed demons?” Shane mused.

It certainly felt familiar. Not that a demon would do anything with a dead body, but humans had to have their fun.

Ryan was definitely already scared. Shane stared at the camera screen, doing his best to ignore his demonic senses. Even humans watching at home could probably tell. Shane wondered if he could pull a ghost to him...

There was something very hilarious in making Ryan jscared with purely human means though.

Especially when it was by _accident._

Shane laughed at Ryan jumping at his flashlight accidentally hitting the disco ball.

Humans had their fun, demons their own, after all.

 

* * *

 

Shane listened to Ryan tell him about the ghost Johanna as they sat in the dark room. He sure seemed confident in how ghosts worked. Shane was sure some real knowledge was hidden amongst the mountains of bullshit Ryan had dug up from the Internet. But it was presumably like looking for the needle of truth in a pile of reddit-sourced bullshit.

 _Did_ ghosts know they were dead?

From what Shane remembered, ghosts did seem largely well- braindead. Reliving their dying moments. Screaming in pain a lot.

You needed a skilled witch to get anything resembling a human being out. Shane had summoned a ghost on his own once and ended up with a ball of psychic rage that shouted obscenities and made cows explode.

“Johanna are you here?” Shane called out. He felt around a bit. Nothing clear he could easily pull up and let feed off of his power enough to manifest. “What about the demons?”

He savored the predictable spike of anxiety in Ryan. Nowhere near pure terror, more like a sweet little snack.

“Ryan's not scared of you either.”

“No nope that's not true.” Ryan's eyes widened. “Oh you keep fucking tricking me into talking to them you dickhead.”

Shane shrugged, mentally making a note to somehow try to get Ryan to summon a real ghost at some point. “You gotta. If you want to be a real big boy ghost investigator. What? Why even bother coming here if you just- go 'oh don't show up ghosts please!'”

“Ghosts are different from demons! They're gonna see me and just jump at me-”

“Jump your bones? That's what you think is gonna happen? Wait what kinda dreams were you having of the Sallie house exactly?”

“Shut up. I didn't mean that! Don't give demons any ideas! Besides, the demon that hung out in there was supposedly like- looks like a little girl so, that'd be inappropriate in so many ways-”

Ryan was making Shane notice some whole new things about himself. Like that he was actually finding this discomfort interesting. Ryan did seem to have a wider variety of feelings he liked the taste of, or rather just the feeling of getting them out of him.

“Gotcha. Sorry, Sallie. Ryan's only into demons who aren't into weird dressup. No putting on your finest little girl suit that's just weird man. Now an _adult_ demon-”

“Shh shut it!” Ryan hissed. “I'm a taken man. I don't know why my mind went to that and not, you know, not dating a demon. Anyway, I got a girlfriend. Sh, I'm not talking about this.”

Oh. A new flavor of discomfort. Something hurtful, something hidden. A sharp, bitter pinprick of a feeling...

Shane didn't understand Ryan well enough to get what that had been about really.

Shane eyed Ryan, and then the Ryan on the small screen of his hand-held camera. There was something there about the idea of... layers.

Layers of reality.

He wasn't sure if this bit would make it to the episode but if it did, thousands of people would see that layer of events.

Then one layer deeper there were the editors who'd work on the footage, have more context.

Then TJ, who was standing right there, recording them, being aware of them. TJ knew Ryan, he heard the words coming out of his mouth, and understood them to an extent.

But never as well as Shane did.

No one else had the point of view of being aware of Ryan's feelings quite the same way.

It was-

Interesting.

He followed Ryan out of the room, content to mostly observe him for now as they moved through the dark building. Until Ryan's attention was caught by a closet.

He pointed at the closed doors.“You come over here and you open this.”

“Why?” Shane asked.

“It says 'danger do not enter keep out.'”

“Well why would we go in there?” Shane turned to see where Mrs Roland was. She had stayed in the last room. He almost opened his mouth to tell Ryan she wouldn't approve.

“Because then naturally you got to,” Ryan argued.

“But it says 'danger'!”

Shane watched Ryan approach the closet and a jolt of panic surged through him. They wouldn't just put a sign like that on for no reason, right? There probably was a very good reason for it, like the floor was missing, or this was where everyone did their heroin, or stored all the powertools.

And Ryan was just a fragile little human who could just trip and hit his head and then he'd be gone-

“It says 'danger' I wouldn't go in there!”

Dammit, were was Mrs Roland? Wasn't it her job to keep an eye on them so Ryan wouldn't get his squishy human body horribly maimed on used heroin syringes and powerdrills?

He watched Ryan slowly open the door. “It's a ghost hole.”

 _That_ might actually scare him away from clearly not-meant-for-humans holes.

Before Ryan could step into the closet Shane did, pretending to be interested in the tapes inside.

Ryan laughed. “Oh now you go in.”

Shane looked around the closet. Nothing too dangerous, it seemed.

He felt maybe a bit foolish.

 

* * *

 

 

They walked through the building, Shane yelling at the dark and Ryan getting more and more nervous. Shane could feel the tension in him building as they approached the supposed demon hole. He added to it, calling out the supposed demons, telling them to follow Ryan home. Feeding Ryan's fears just with words.

“Turn the light off if uh- if you think- if you want to follow Ryan Bergara home.”

“Why would you ask it that!?”

It was too easy.

Ryan's mind, his imagination, was filling the dark with demons of all kind.

What a human thing to do.

“So, uh, this is a-” Ryan's voice was quivering. “Inside this door is the well room.”

Shane stepped forward, opening the door. “Let's get this over with then. Should we have like... coins? To throw down the well?”

“It's not a wishing well!”

“Sounds like it is. Throw a coin, or a decapitated head, whatever, down there- I mean why else would cultists throw heads down wells?”

“I don't know! Cultists are fucked up!”

Shane reached out to the shadows. Nothing. Not even cultists, luckily.

Shane raised his voice. “Hello, cultists, if you're here. Don't let us intrude on your- your fucked up shit..? We mean you no harm, we just want to put you and your demon pals on Youtube.” He turned towards Ryan. “You see, I figure it is an actual possibility some freaks in cloaks are actually hanging out here so I figure I don't want to anger them. I am far more afraid of some weirdo cosplaying Emperor Palpatine trying to murder me and throw my body down a well than I am of demons.”

“Hnnnh you have a point, I guess. Though at least you can usually see physical humans coming at you.” The light from Ryan's flashlight swept the room.

Carefully, he stepped towards the sealed-off well and shone his light down. “That's the portal to Hell in there.”

Shane looked down. “Oh! I do think I spot some coins! I was right.”

“Well I say that, it's nicer, at least, throwing coins at demons than- than heads. Like a demonic version of a- church offering.”

They walked around the room, trying to pick up anything. Finally Ryan spoke up.

“So we're gonna do two minutes each, alone in there,” he said, pointing at the room.

“Aha,” Shane nodded, raising an eyebrow at the rope Ryan had pulled from his bag.

Ryan seemed to notice. “I want to be pulled out as soon as something happens so I'm just gonna tie this around me.”

He handed the other end of the rope to Shane.

So this had been his security measure he had mentioned. Made sense... Shane could tell there were no actual demonic threats in the building (apart from the obvious) but Ryan slipping and falling to his death?

A very real threat.

Humans didn't even see in the dark.

“If I pull on this rope you gonna pull me the fuck out of there,” Ryan told him.

Shane nodded. “Okay.”

He watched Ryan disappear into the well room.

He listened to him stuttering, telling the non-existant ghosts he wasn't going to talk to them.

Shane could tell Ryan was moving in the room, towards the well.

Panic rose in Shane's being.

_He wasn't, surely-_

The rope slipped in his grasp.

“Ryan you okay in there?”

His imagination provided him with several possible scenarios of Ryan slipping and falling down the well, or hitting his head into a protruding nail so his brain leaked out, or being bit by a rat and getting rabies, or trying to go down the well and breaking his legs and then dying of blood loss before they could get him out of the well-

“Ryan!”

“I'm fine I'm just fucking around,” came the shaky voice.

Shane cursed inwardly. Of course, he could just reach out to check on Ryan. He was just in the next room. He was letting Ryan get to him.

He stared at the phone screen illuminated in the dark. “We got two minutes!”

“I'm good, can I come out?”

Why was Ryan anxious? There hadn't even been anything in that room. The human was an annoyance.

“You're good, you can come out.”

Shane could feel the rope slacken as Ryan approached and stepped out.

Ryan handed the rope to Shane.

Shane stared at it. “I'm not going to be pulled in the well by some demons. Surely, if there were some crazed cultists or whatever they would have already snatched you up.”

Ryan gave him a look.

Shane sighed, wrapping the rope around himself. “Okay, I feel safe.”

He walked into the dark.

“You're on your own,” Ryan called out.

Shane stared into the dark. “Hey there demons. It's me. Ya boy. I'm a- standing near your hole. And it's very dark. And um frankly I don't believe in you. So I feel like I'm writing a letter to Santa Claus right now-”

He stopped to wonder if Santa Claus was real.

Huh.

Maybe he could convince Ryan to do an episode on that.

“But ah, my friend Ryan does believe in you, so maybe you are real, he's a- I wouldn't say a _logical_ person, but... smart.”

That was true. Ryan was a human and so illogical by nature, but he wasn't stupid.

Just a bit oblivious, really.

Then again Shane was very smart for a demon so Ryan couldn't really be blamed for not catching on.

“Uh... I guess I'll be quiet now and if you wanna, pick me up or scratch me or slam me into the ceiling now would be the best opportunity for that.”

He could tell Ryan was starting to panic again.

_Oh, I see._

Ryan was afraid Shane was successfully angering demons enough for them to crawl out of their little hidey hole.

“Do try to kill me.”

He grinned at the spike of fear from Ryan.

Maybe he could-

He tugged on the rope.

Ryan tensed.

“A-are you trying to fuck with me?”

Shane stepped out of the well room with a grin. “Yea, he he he.”

Well, that had showed Ryan.

This had been fun, eventually. Even if they had found no demons.

Shane found he didn't even really mind the wave of Ryan's relief washing over him as they exited the bar.

* * *

 

 

Ryan clutched the steering wheel as they started their drive towards their hotel. “Maybe there was something in there, I just wanted to get out. Tho I'm happy we're done.”

“You escaped the clutches of yet another demon,” Shane told him with a smile.

“By the way you're a psychopath for saying the things you said to it there,” Ryan said.

“Demons aren't real so that's why I tend to be so flip with them,” Shane said. Maybe it'd put Ryan's mind at ease.

“Or one of them is gonna follow me home.”

“The only way to provoke them is to provoke them!” Shane told him, annoyed at the genuine fear in Ryans' demeanor. He didn't want Ryan to get afraid _now_ , just on location.

Shane was suddenly very aware of the camera recording this all on the back seat.

“You don't need to provide a home address!” Ryan argued.

“All I said was Los Angeles! Do you know how many people live in Los Angeles? That demon's never gonna find you.” Shane went back to referring to the demon as real. Sometimes when he did that Ryan calmed down.

“There's only one Ryan Bergara in Los Angeles.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes it's true there's only two in the world!”

“Oh,” Shane tried to make conversation. “Have you met the other one?”

“He's in the Philippines.”

“You gotta kill him.”

Ryan laughed, tension broken.

“Or, I could let him live, rely on the demons getting confused.”

“Good. Let's do that.” Shane grinned. “I'm pretty sure any demon is going to come after me first. I shall act as a lightning rod for you. It's a promise.”

“Good. Great. Let's just hope I didn't pick up anything.”

Shane leaned back in his seat. “No. Don't worry about that. Nothing you didn't already have with you.”

“Yes, well I suppose if I were to get cursed I already am.”

Shane smiled. “That's the spirit.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

Shane tried to stretch his legs again and ended up kicking the car seat in front of him.

“Sorry. Legs.”

“It's okay,” Devon replied. “I don't think I can pull the seat any-”

“It's okay, I'm used to this by now.”

“Yeah he's 80% leg,” Ryan stretched next to Shane on the back seat. “Not much longer tho. The ride I mean. You do need to continue being a leggy subspecies of sasquatch for the rest of your life.”

Shane tried to squeeze himself into a more comfortable position. _Next time I'll make myself a human form I'll make sure to go normal sized_.

Truth be told, he _did_ enjoy towering over people, Ryan especially, but this form wasn't even properly intimidating. No muscle mass.

Also Ryan kept making fun of the size of his head.

“We're there soon,” TJ told them from the driver's seat. “Can't be longer than an hour.”

“Hey Shane, do you think there are maybe different subspecies of Bigfoot?” Ryan asked.

“I mean, maybe? It'd make sense? Possibly.”

“Like maybe ones evolved to survive in a lake environment?”

“I guess?”

Ryan grinned. “Less hairy, long legs?”

“Aha I know what you're- Ryan I am not a Bigfoot. My feet are mostly normal sized.”

“Long skinny legs they use to wade in water? To catch fish?” TJ asked. “Like one of those, um cranes or something.”

“Haha. Very funny.”

“Cheer up, we're about to see your family,” Ryan told him. “The Madej clan, hiding in the woods.”

Shane rubbed his beard. His body hair had the tendency to grow in bursts, whenever he remembered to pay attention to it. He had made sure to grow a beard (a much better beard than Ryan's) in preparation for the Bigfoot hunt, but he still looked perfectly like a human.

Then again, if Bigfoot, or bigfeet, or whatever, were related to humans they would presumably look like humans too? Chimpanzees did.

So basically he wasn't annoyed at this teasing at all. Did they even know how hard it was to make a human body?

_Nice body, Ryan, did your_ mom _make it to you?_

Annoyed that he couldn't unleash that massive burn on Ryan he said instead: “I'd love to see a Bigfoot.”

It would be interesting to see a different species than humans that had souls, for one. He had the vaguest memories of long time ago, of first sensing souls and fear, and he wasn't sure those had been modern humans.

“I still can't believe you think bigfoot is real,” Ryan said.

“Why not? These forests are big!” Shane thought of something. “Do you think- I know ghosts aren't real but I'm wondering what goes on in that brain of yours- At what point did humans get the ability to become ghosts? Like at what point of human evolution they could come back as ghosts? And could Bigfoot be a ghost? In your beliefs.”

“Well, I mean, animals can have ghosts too.”

“What? Since when?”

“Well there are sightings of-of ghost cats and ghost dogs,” Ryan claimed. “So at least mammals.”

“And you believe that.”

Well that was one more incorrect thing Ryan believed.

“Okay, so you're saying... The- um- I guess Bigfoot, is a ghost of human ancestors?” TJ said.

Ryan looked like he was actually considering it. “Like- a Neanderthal?”

Shane nodded. “Yeah or like, uh, one of those Homo-guys, Homo... erectus. The first dude that figured out the whole 'walking on two feet' thing, died, and then invented being a ghost.”

“They didn't live in the Americas,” Devon pointed out. “Neither did the Neanderthals.”

“Well then I guess. Walked to Willow Creek across the Atlantic,” Shane said. “They're ghosts Devon, they get to follow any made up rules we decide. What with them being not real.”

“I never did think of it,” Ryan admitted. “I guess it's possible. Also ghosts are real.”

“Ryan, I was kidding! Bigfoot is flesh and blood!”

“I am writing this down for my narration.”

“I have made a terrible mistake. Just helping your mind fill up with nonsense.” Shane moved his legs again, kicking the seat in front of him.

* * *

 

Shane stared at the famed Bigfoot sandwich.

And then at Ryan's face.

“This is the heaviest sandwich I have ever... embraced.”

This was a challenge, that much was clear even on the most superficial level.

Shane took a bite.

He _could_ eat, of course. And this body was basically indistinguishable from a human when he was keeping all the shadowy demon parts inside.

But he didn't usually bother that much with food.

When he had first made the body, well it had been a disaster. He had been bleeding from all kinds of holes, and had blindly escaped the hospital he had been carted off to after some traumatized campers had found the bleeding mess on the road middle of nowhere.

He had gotten a hang of it eventually, of course. Figured out what organs went where, as much it was a shame people couldn't see most of them to appreciate how he had finally managed to craft a working pancreas.

The weird thing with human bodies, he had realized, was that you could just let go a bit, relinquish control, let the shape follow the blueprint it found some way, and let it do whatever. And equally interestingly, it sometimes felt like the human body was doing its best to come up with physical responses mirroring the demonic impulses within.

Thirst, when he needed to feed, feeling like breath got stuck in his throat when he got uncomfortable, wheezing laughter that seemed to mostly happen around Ryan...

Of course he could ignore the physical needs but considering he was trying to keep up the appearances, why bother? Sure he could just _not_ breathe but it was so much easier to just lean into it and let his lungs do whatever they were doing.

He looked at Ryan stuffing the burger to his mouth.

Maybe he should just stop breathing. For a while. See if Ryan would notice.

For now though, he had a competition to win. Ryan was already halfway through the Bigfoot sandwich, and looking way too smug about it.

Shane considered just unhinging his jaw for a second until he just pushed the burger down.

In no time the burger was down his gullet. He'd worry about it and all the sordid intestinal details later.

“That was the biggest bite you got? It was a nibble.” He licked his fingers, celebrating his victory. “I've done it.”

Ryan leaned back. “My organs are starting to shut down.”

“Really?”

“I'll be dead in five minutes,” Ryan told him dramatically. “I think I may need to go to the hospital.”

Shane laughed, almost sucking in a lungful of pepsi.

“Ryan Bergara, killed by a bigfoot. That's how I will be phrasing it to people by the way.”

“I tried my best. Just tell them that.”

Shane wiped his mouth on the napkin. “I will sing the songs of your struggle. At the very least I avenged your death by devouring one of these big boys in record time.”

“Oh, yes, that's going to make me feel better, having that rubbed in my face in my final moments.”

“Who would you like to play you in the movie adaptation? I claim dibs on Tom Cruise.”

“He would literally have to play the part on stilts.”

Shane looked at the watch. “So, what, 3 minutes longer? Until you leave this mortal coil? Any final confessions? Such as 'ghosts weren't real after all?'”

“No you dickhead, I have you know-” Ryan burped.

“I think that was your soul trying to escape.”

“I was going to say, if I die I am SO going to haunt you. And then you gotta admit ghosts are real.”

“That a good idea? You really gonna hang out with me the rest of eternity?”

“Let's face it it's not going to be that much longer. Your lovely personality is going to help you make some enemies you really should not have.”

“Maybe, maybe.”

* * *

 

 

“Oh fuck!” Ryan laughed, dropping the log.

Shane looked closer.

“Something moved there- in the detritus.”

“It's a salamander!” Shane called out.

“Oh fuck it's alive dude!” Ryan stepped closer, zooming into the amphibian. “Does it bite? Ah-AH!”

Shane picked it up. “It's a little- a little newt! Or a salamander.”

Ryan grinned. “His name is Cedric. He struck me as a Cedric as I first saw him.”

Shane set Cedric down on some soft moss on a nicer sturdier log. “There you go little buddy. Cedric.”

He watched the newt sit on the log.

“Go! Go be free! Make your nest in this log. Looks a bit nicer. Mossier. Probably you traded up here.”

The amphibian stared at him. Or maybe at the world in general. Sort of difficult to tell with newts.

“I think it doesn't want to go,” Ryan said.

“I think it _can't_ go!” Shane pointed at Ryan. “You named it, he's your son now.”

“I can't raise a child! Not yet anyway! I'm not ready to be a father!”

“Well you should have thought of it before. It's like the... The book. Little Prince. If you name something you got to... Take care of it. The- Cedric the salamander, _your_ salamander, is probably cold.”

“Well he is old enough to move on his own. I can't be responsible for him forever. See, there he goes. To his salamander job.”

Shane watched Cedric the Salamander disappear into the undergrowth. Whether it knew it or not, it was now forever named Cedric.

That was a bit of a human magic, Shane supposed.

Words, language, naming things, that was a bit of a magic in itself. Something Shane had become quite proficient himself if he said so. You could just say or write things and they didn't even have to be true! Amazing. And yet it was on some level real. Like a perversion of reality.

He thought of the other Shane Alexander Madej.

He didn't know who had named him once, his parents, probably. The demon who stole his name hadn't considered him much beyond him being there, and being suitable for his needs.

He had needed a name and a place in the human society and so had taken one.

Humans needed names, especially these days. Real sticklers for all that. Gotta have a passport and everything. Shane patted his pocket where his passport was. Gotta have one on you to prove you were a real human if people asked.

Shane stood up in the forest. You could almost pretend here it wasn't like that.

“Peaceful,” he noted.

Of course Ryan didn't really get it. Or did he? Did humans sense each other on some level? Apart from smell... Sometimes when he observed souls it did seem like they reached out to each other. Pulsed in harmony sometimes.

“It's weird how you don't even realize all the- hustle and bustle in a city... You get used to it,” Shane said.

The forest around him felt so.. empty. Apart from Ryan, and T.J. and Devon... And some hitchhikers maybe a bit further away, no humans around apart from them. Quite a contrast to Los Angeles.

He thought back to the Bigfoot, and to the first humans that must have walked the earth. Could he sense their souls? Had a human, maybe gotten their soul when they had first opened their mouth and known how to name it? Somewhere back in Africa millions of years ago something with no soul had given birth to a human with a soul, and their children made more humans with souls, and named their children... Spreading everywhere on the planet, making more and more humans. And eventually you got a human, a great-great-great-and-so-on-grand-daughter of the original human giving birth to a little baby and naming him Ryan...

Shane stared at Ryan. He was just the latest link in a chain. No real thought had been put into it. Or effort. Certainly not like _Shane_ had.

Humans had only the vaguest of understanding of the real naming of things. Using human language let you just say things and it was then real on some level. On some level there was now a salamander named Cedric crawling around a forest in California.

At some point, a human had perhaps realized it had a soul and started telling lies.

And then already there had been demons waiting, aware of the truer words beneath, hungrily reaching for their fear, ready to show them the real unchanging truths...

If he could only remember...

But instinctively, he knew there had been a time before humans.

“You know- you know why I really would love there to be Bigfoot?” Shane asked.

“Finally someone taller than you?”

“It would be nice if there was some other species out there who is like- sentient, you know? Same for aliens.”

“Hmm yes.”

* * *

 

 

Ryan looked at Shane. “You know, your Bigfoot call is- it's distressingly good.”

“Thank you!”

Ryan took a sip of his beer. “You do realize it's a mating call, right?”

Shane shrugged. “Oh I'm going to take Mr Foot on a date first. I'm sure he's a gentleman.”

“Oh yes, this is how I have wooed several of my girlfriends in the past,” Ryan laughed. “Just sat in the woods with a beer and yelled them to come and get it.”

“Well it obviously worked.”

“The old Bergara mating call. Just less. Bigfooty.”

If Ryan expected Shane to say anything about _his_ past romantic exploits he'd remain disappointed. Although Shane was starting to think he should come up with some backstory with that. If it ever did come up.

His thoughts were interrupted by his co-host. “To be honest, I did wonder about you, at some point. If you are even human.”

Shane turned to look at Ryan. “Now whatever would give you that impression?”

“Come on now, with those proportions? That _is_ an unnaturally huge head for a human. On an unnaturally long noodle-like body.” Ryan took an another sip of beer. “I mean- also you're sometimes like a-like a robot. Everyone says you're-”

“That I'm a what?”

Ryan looked at his beer and suddenly it felt like this joke had gone a bit too far. “Fuck, I meant it as a- not in a mean way, you know, you're well known around the office as the really hard worker, kinda not a- you aren't really a warm person-”

“Yes I am! When Karen had her baby I signed the card and all. 'Congrats on your baby.' Didn't try to- to kidnap it to use as Bigfoot bait or anything.”

“It's not meant as- Fuck. People like you, Shane. I was talking to Curly a bunch before and he always said how nice you are, everyone does think so but you're also a- maybe I shouldn't have had so many beers really-”

“Yeah, nice to know the whole office just talks behind my back how much they hate me. 'Oh yes that Madej, he's a right proper bastard' I don't know why I did a cockney accent there, um, there's no one at the office who talks like that. As far as I know. Maybe there is, but he's not talking to me since everyone has told him what a jerk I am-.”

“They don't.” Ryan looked at T.J. “Come on, T.J, you can, just tell him what I meant, I didn't mean it like that.”

“I know he didn't,” Shane said, annoyed at how this was now obviously not a bit for the show. T.J. clearly didn't know if he should get involved.

Ryan continued: “Anyway if they did it'd be how you can't be human since unlike everyone else at the office you actually get your work done in time.”

“Not sleeping helps.”

“Hmm, yes, saying things like that sure makes you seem human. Sorry, a bit.”

Shane laughed, deciding to play it off as a joke. “That's me, a robot. Shane 2.0.”

“Half robot, half sasquatch.”

“Half robo, half squatch, all Madej.”

“Shane 'robosquatch' Madej.” Ryan gave Shane a questioning smile.

Shane laughed, any tension broken.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: more on the other shane alexander madej, also there will finally be a ghost in this fic


	14. Chapter 14

Shane sat in his new chair. He drummed the desk with his fingers. "Don't you think the show will lose its special flavor? We no longer look like two losers filming in your mom's basement. Look at us! We look almost professional."

Ryan feigned shock. "Shit you're right. What if people take us too seriously. Oh my God we gotta have _standards_ now. People _will_ think we're professionals."

"Well once you open your mouth I think they'll realize their mistake."

Shane looked around the brand new set. It probably looked like a real office through the camera.

Him and Ryan, just the two of them as far as the audience was aware.

Shane eyed the people gathered in the small room, setting up the equipment and testing the cameras.

He waved at Curly. Gave him a little smile.

_Fuck you Ryan I can be warm._

"Look at you! Moving up in the world! Got your own set!" Curly walked to the desk.

"It's quite something," Shane winked.

_I can be like the fucking sun that's how warm I'll be._

Shane patted Ryan's shoulder. "Ryan worked really hard for this."

"Surely both of you!"

"Yeah, sure." Shane shrugged. "I didn't really help much. This is all thanks to set design. I _did_ bring this pen. My contribution."

"I leave you to it," Curly said. "Break a leg."

Shane waved goodbye (warmly).

Ryan opened his folder, looking at the camera: "This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we discuss three of the most compelling mysteries that suggest the presence of ancient aliens."

Shane listened to Ryan talk about the subject.

As far as he knew aliens hadn't visited Earth but it was possible. And in any case a lot of these things were probably ancient demons anyway. Humans had painted weird shit on their walls a bunch! Probably some of it was actual demons.

So it was almost insulting how Ryan had picked examples that were most certainly humans.

Shane pointed at the image of a supposed alien astronaut. "Come on that's obviously a human with some fruit on their head!"

"No you come on, and use your imagination."

"Ryan, surely you could have picked some more convincing ones, like, I don't know. One of those Egyptian dudes with a lion head."

"Why would aliens have earth animal heads?"

"I don't know Ryan why would aliens be little grey men obsessed with butts. Why would they have rockets and helicopters identical to what we do in modern day?"

"Maybe it's the most optimal way to- to travel?"

"Yeah. Sure."

_Dammit I don't know enough about helicopters to dispute that._

As far as Shane remembered he had never visited ancient Egypt, or Egypt in general, though lot of the places probably looked the same back in the stone age or whatever, but Shane was questioning whether demons would have been involved. Maybe.

Ryan certainly was convinced aliens had told humans how to build pyramids. Because of _art._

Well Shane could do art too.

"What are you drawing?" Ryan looked over.

"Ryan, here's you with three butt cheeks."

"Hahaha okay."

Shane showed his art piece to the camera.

There. Not that most people believed it, but it wasn't like most people even saw Ryan's butt ever, so as far as most people knew, it was the most information they had on his butt and thus on some level true, and Shane had a feeling he was maybe thinking of Ryan's butt more than usual.

Ryan's butt was quite normal for a human, Shane was pretty sure.

He stealthily glanced over. Yup. Normal as far as he could see.

For a second Shane considered what incorrect things people watching the show might believe of _him_ , but they didn't matter. Shane wasn't in this for Internet fame or to build a cult of followers.

Ryan laughed at the drawing and Shane smiled at his co-host's reaction.

Making humans build huge rock piles just for fun was a thing some demons _were_ into but any actual engineering knowledge probably came from humans.

Shane guiltily thought to the IKEA shelf laying still in pieces in his flat. He wasn't exactly an expert in engineering and had no reason to think any demon had been.

He made the decision to finish the damn shelf once he got home.

* * *

 

 

It turned out to be slightly more challenging than he had thought.

Shane looked at the parts on the floor.

"So, we meet again-" he looked at the instructions. "'Billy'? That's not very Swedish of you I thought all of these things were called like, Johanson Smårgasborg or... Karl Kött...bullars...son- or BPÅCKEN or whatever."

He realized he had thrown away all of the tiny but apparently vital wood plugs when he had first opened the package.

"Hm. Time to dig through the trash."

Luckily he hadn't taken the trash out, he usually let it just sit in the corner of the room for ages, though it wasn't like he was throwing anything smelly out. Victorious from his quest of digging through the trashbag in his kitchenette he returned to his work.

It was a small bookshelf and the instructions were simple enough. It even had pictures. Easy. Or maybe he was just a natural.

It was probably unusual to almost get everything right on your first attempt. He only had to unscrew one piece after realizing it was upside down.

“All in all, I grade this attempt 9/10,” he said, out loud, imagining an audience to his triumph. He took a selfie of himself with the shelf and sent it to Ryan.

Next time he should get something from IKEA that required real screwdrivers to assemble. Maybe even one of those powerdrills. Yes Sir he felt ready to graduate from the tiny crank thing that had come with the shelf.

He looked at the product of his labor.

He set his Mission Impossible box set on it. Didn't collapse. A success. He had successfully taken advantage of human engineering expertise.

He just hoped those few leftover parts weren't vital.

 

* * *

 

 

Unfortunately, the next episode they were taping turned out to be also about aliens. Not of much interest to Shane.

“Quick thought, is it annoying that I hold this pen?” Shane asked, waving it around.

“Oh yeah it's really annoying,” Ryan smiled.

“Oh it's here now forever,” Shane grinned. “You're always, you got your paper I'm just sitting over here twiddling my thumbs,” Shane pointed out. “It's nice to have a little pen.”

“I think your douche meter's usually half-mast, now it's about three-quarters full.”

Shane waved his arms, miming a meter exploding. “Phuuh, through the roof! Through the douche roof!”

“Hehe.”

“Shane 'Douche Roof' Madej.”

Shane turned to look at Ryan. It hadn't quite been a nickname given to him _by_ Ryan but almost, really.

Shane did listen and comment on what Ryan was talking about even if he didn't have much use for Bermuda Triangle stuff. At the very least they had a trip to a haunted hospital scheduled for next week.

"Honestly this one... these ones don't do much for me 'cause-"

Ryan interrupted him. "Don't _do much_ for you?"

"Planes crash, boats sink!" Shane pointed out.

Not that demons couldn't make things disappear. Sometimes they had reason to, and he was sure some of these abduction cases were in fact demons approaching humans.

Shane knew some of the things he had done would have come across as similar-

"I'm gonna need some documentation on this," Shane said. Maybe the stories did have details Ryan hadn't included but he'd recognize.

"You need some documentation?! Look up the stories I'm just saying-"

"I'm gonna look them up."

Ryan sighed. "You're just-"

"What else disappeared?"

Shane wasn't even sure what he was looking for. Or why he was thinking of _him_ now.

Shane was snapped back to reality by something he sensed from Ryan. "You're seething!"

He was!

"I can't believe you think this is not weird!" Ryan exclaimed.

Shane looked at him. He was smiling but there was genuine frustration in Ryan that hadn't been there before.

Shane decided to push him a bit. "I can't believe that you don't think that boats sink!"

"Anyway!" Ryan turned his attention to the files.

Shane observed him.

He had been genuinely upset at Shane this time.

Why?

"These are really the best cases you got?" he asked.

"Oh why don't you dig them up instead? Think my version of the story isn't accurate?"

"I never said that. Just thought there might be... more."

"Nah it's fine," Ryan continued.

"No, it's, I was-"

"Anyway-" Ryan started again, turning to look at the camera, and this time Shane didn't interrupt.

And when he brought the Atlantis theory up all Shane could do was laugh.

Even with Ryan's suggestions about black holes and alternative universes.

Sure, demons could open vortexes to hell, but that wasn't a different universe. That was just being more _there_ than humans realized.

Ending up in Hell just meant being more grounded in reality than usual.

As they wrapped up the filming, Shane considered asking Ryan what was wrong.

No.

Best not to.

Ryan was fine.

* * *

 

Shane ended up avoiding Ryan for the next day, but eventually had enough of it and approached the human.

"Okay so-"

Ryan turned towards Shane. "Yeah?"

Shane probed his emotions. He wasn't angry anymore. But guarded.

The demon stood there, middle of the office, trying to decide what to say.

"Is this about the trip?"

Grateful for the opening, Shane nodded. "Yeah, I was just wondering about- You mentioned we might sleep on location, I'm wondering now- if we're gonna, what should I pack-"

"Yeah, Devon and I wrote the e-mail about that exactly." Ryan stared at Shane. "You didn't read it? She and I went through the details and-"

"I must have- must have missed it. Okay."

Ryan nodded. "Okay."

"I'll go read it then." Shane turned around and fled to his desk.

Yeah, he should prepare too.

He stared at the computer screen.

He could actually-

He glanced at Ryan. He could actually, just to make things more interesting-

Give Ryan a little gift.

Something only a demon could get him.

* * *

 

 

 

Shane sat at the middle of his small apartment and stared at the items in front of him.

He stood up to pace around the room. Unfortunately the room was tiny and his legs were long so it ended up being more twirling around in a circle than anything.

He was going to summon a ghost.

Ghosts weren't any kinda threat to a demon, obviously. Or of much interest. So he generally didn't bother. But it would be good to- to practice.

If he was going to summon a ghost for Ryan to gawk at on their next trip.

Yeah, he was doing this for Ryan.

He sat back down and focused on the objects set in front of him.

Had he been doing this with a human, he would have drawn a circle or two. Maybe lighted candles. There would have been chanting. Maybe mirrors. Shane liked mirrors.

Most of it was just for ambiance. To put the human more at ease. Steve had also been keen on sacrifices and other things. Helped with the humans, he had claimed. But the truth was all you needed was the focus, power and will.

Humans were good for the last one, good at directing energies to do what they wanted. But a demon brought the power to the ritual and Shane was confident he could brute-force it, or emulate what a human would do.

Shane ran a finger on the passport set in front of him. And here was the focus.

It just made sense. To try with this particular spirit. Shane knew that with humans at least having a personal connection to the spirit helped a lot and there was no ghost he'd have more connection to.

"Come on out, I just want to talk..."

He reached out. This bit was tricky. He wasn't too sure what to look for. A human who was provided the power was more likely to successfully reach a ghost by drawing it to their soul, especially if they had known the spirit. Someone with no soul like Shane couldn't rely on that.

He focused on the passport. Trying to pick up something that felt like a soul. He moved his hand on the other objects. A rusty key he had never figured the use of, and a library card.

He spoke out again. "Shane Madej, I call you."

He stopped to think. "The _other_ Shane Alexander Madej. Come on, buddy. The last time we met was a bit, um, distressing for you I get it, but I'm not going to hurt you."

He reached out to... somewhere. It felt like there was something out there, like a silvery fish swimming at the edge of his vision. "Come on dude. Wouldn't you like to-"

Suddenly a warm feeling passed him by. Like a breath of warm air.

"Mr Madej, is that you? I got your hmmm library card here. You could check out the latest best-seller by-"

Something collided with him with a force that felt like he was hit by a bubble of warm air. Not enough to hurt. But it had felt hostile.

"The fuck?"

And he was surrounded by it.

_A scream in the sun, the pain, the pain the-_

Shane backed away from the items. This wasn't Other Shane.

_Her scream in the language he no longer understood, pleading with him, screaming in pain-_

He could know what she wanted. All he had to do was reach out to her and-

No.

He backed further away and into the small kitchenette, only stopping when his back hit the unused oven.

"Hey, fuck off!"

He felt so hot as the memory invaded his senses, his skin was burning, the scent of charred flesh-

A plate on the kitchen counter exploded.

"Hey! That's mine!"

And now cold anger rose up in him.

"I didn't want to talk to _you!_ Fuck off! In fact I don't want to talk to _any_ of you-"

Something hot slammed into his body and for a moment he was disoriented. His body felt like it was burning but he saw no flames.

She was-

She was trying to _possess_ him.

The absurdity of the situation made him laugh out loud.

A lost little ghost was trying to possess a _demon._

"You forgot, didn't you?" Shane mumbled. Saying it out loud made him feel better immediately.

Truth be told, he had forgotten for a moment too. Acted like a human.

He reached out, letting his demonic essence flood the apartment, drowning out the burning spirit. She screamed. He wondered if a ghost could feel what it was like to drown.

He reached out, curious, trying to feel her fear.

"You're way out of you league," he told her.

She was just a ghost, probably couldn't even sense him properly. She tried to flee, but shadowy talons reached out to her, trapping her.

She needed to be taught a lesson.

She trashed like a drowning victim, a vaguely human shaped force, her suggestion of a mouth wordlessly screaming a question.

Shane didn't care what it was. She was just a little ghost he had accidentally dredged up.

_A voice a voice a voice in my head it burns-_

"Not doing that sorta stuff anymore. Go haunt someone else."

_Tell me tell me tell me-_

He sank his shadow talons deep into the spectral form, not taking any particular pleasure in the action.

Her fear was a poor imitation of something real as her fire was easily overpowered by the cold dark feeling of water crushing her.

And then she was gone.

Shane took a deep breath, pulling back into his body.

He breathed in and out, focusing on the feeling of air flowing in and out. His body was shaking...

He blinked at the state of his apartment. It looked like someone had let a large, very wet and excitable dog in there to play.

He stared at the DVDs thrown around the room. “Oops.”

He opened the window, hoping it'd dry the air a bit. This moisture wasn't great for electronics. He hadn't meant to use this much power. Luckily the trip to the abandoned hospital would be in two days, because Shane would have to feed soon again.

He spotted his brand new IKEA shelf laying on its side. “Ah.”

He reached to pull it up, when he realized it was wobblier than before.

“Oh no, Billy.”

One of the side panels had snapped almost in half.

Shane sighed.

Overall this had been a bit of a fuck-up.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: waverly hills hospital, and shane continues to not have fun times


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this chapter works hnhngh.

“So, we're approaching... Waverly,” Ryan said, and Shane could already tell he was afraid just by the tone of his shaky voice.

“The look of this building is so imposing I'm honestly surprised you're conscious right now.” Shane noted.

The place at least looked interesting, and he could even feel hesitation from Devon and Mark.

Shane laughed and waved at the abandoned hospital. “Hey ghouls! The boys are here!”

“What if they hear? Oh fuck there's someone-”

“That's just the lady who owns the place,” Shane told him. “It's just a lady, Ryan.”

“I know that.”

Shane laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you feel strange?” Ryan asked.

Shane hesitated. Maybe it was because of how this place just felt like an antithesis of him. While it was dark there was something about this darkness that didn't feel comfortable.

It wasn't _his_ darkness, and when he let his shadows out to travel in the dry corridors he felt resistance.

Like he wasn't supposed to be here.

Like there was something hostile lurking around here.

“No,” he answered and his voice sounded shakier than he wished it to.

The air was thick with dust. He always felt more comfortable around water, so that was it probably.

Ryan coughed.

“You okay?” Shane asked.

“Yeah.” Ryan reached to take the water bottle Mark offered him. “Just got some of this dust stuck in my- my throat.”

“Does it feel similar to the Sallie house? To you?” Shane asked, walking forwards, ignoring any hesitation he might have felt.

“No, nothing that bad,” Ryan said. “Are you scared? Don't tell me Mister Robot is scared.”

“No, not of ghosts anyway,” Shane said. He probed his surroundings, but the effort was taking its toll. “But this place doesn't exactly look welcoming.”

After making sure Mark got him in the shot, Shane started his bit. “Hello, ghosts. A lot of you were probably very unhappy here, because it seems like a room where they were doing a lot of medical things, that maybe you didn't enjoy. If you're here, we're gonna be real quiet right now. Maybe make some noise, okay here we go!”

He couldn't sense anything.

He reached out to Ryan, letting his fear comfort him. He was just tired, that's why it felt harder to walk across the dusty hallways than usual.

He tried to sound as mocking as he could. “Shockingly, I'm not really hearing anything.”

Ryan laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

“Is that the body chute?” Shane asked.

“I think this is the body chute.”

They stared deep into the dark. Shane could feel Ryan panicking next to him.

Shane wasn't worried.

Really, not.

“Well let's take a look.”

If anything he was numb. Like feeling anything was too much work.

“This is like Satan's cement butthole.”

As long as he could joke about this he was fine.

“How far does this go?” Ryan asked, as they stared at the descending chute. “Are we going to Hell?”

An odd feeling ran through Shane. Like there was some truth to this. But he couldn't sense anyone.

“Let's find out!” he said out loud.

He knew what what Ryan would call a portal to Hell felt like and this wasn't it. He had hoped it'd be, but despite being initially promising this investigation was turning out to be a bust.

He would know if there was a demon here.

Right?

He gathered himself and after checking none of the humans were aiming their infrared cameras on him, reached into the dark, ignoring the wave of something like nausea hitting him as he did so.

It was that feeling of dryness again. His human body opened its mouth, coughing a bit.

It was like coming across a pond that had had all of its water sucked out. Mummified fish still laying in the sand in the midst of fragile paper-like remains of water plants.

Ryan was even more like a beacon in this environment. Shane reached to him, brushing against the shimmering soul. Was it something wrong with Shane? Were his senses dulled because he had wasted too much of his power in that ghost summoning?

He turned his attention towards the end of the shoot, not even that aware of his human body walking towards it.

He was tired. The whole place was zapping his energy. He needed a nap. A decade or two in a nice, cold pond...

_Gotta focus. I'm just hungry._

Had this place been quite this draining before? It almost felt like there was something there in the depths of the chute, or should have been but...

Something was wrong with this place.

He swallowed. “I could use a drink.” His voice was dry, half a whisper. Mark reached to hand him the water bottle and Shane had never felt as thankful to feel water on his tongue.

Ryan made an odd sound.

“You okay?” Shane asked.

He didn't listen to Ryan's answer. Ryan was fine, he probably couldn't even feel-

Whatever this was. Ryan was just getting worked over by his own imagination.

This thing wasn't interested in Ryan.

They reached what seemed to be the end. The tunnel was blocked by plastic.

Shane took a step forwards, mesmerized.

Ryan stepped to the plastic before Shane could, and pulled at it.

A whirring noise filled the chute.

Ryan jumped back. “Whoop, whoop, whoop!”

Shane turned around. “What is that, the wind?”

“I don't know!”

“It just went 'whoo!'”

Whatever it was it had broken the tension Shane hadn't even realized had been building up.

It was just the wind or something like that.

_What was I even thinking?_

Shane licked his dry lips. He really had to get fed soon. He turned to Ryan. “What if I go up there, and you stay down here, and we turn our lights off, and see if we hear anything?”

“How about you go fuck yourself, what about that?”

“Come on, it will be fun! Do it for the views, Ryan!”

“Easy for you to say, you'll be up there- when- when the portal to Hell opens up and swallows me. You got a headstart. And- and freakishly long legs to carry you away while the hellhole is busy chewing on my soul.”

“But on the other hand,” Shane pointed out, “if a ghost shows up and wants to wreck our shit, and I think you agree one angry ghost popping up is more likely than a real Hellportal, I'll be up there, at an optimal height for a ghost to just push me down the chute. Which, fair enough, if it happens. If I'll die by an angry ghost who decides to use my body to re-enact their descent down the chute, cool. Just remember to get it on video.”

Ryan stared at Shane. “I don't know...”

“It'll be fine.” Shane gestured at Mark to follow him back up the chute.

He turned his back on Ryan, and started climbing.

He could feel Ryan getting more and more scared as the distance grew. Good.

Eventually Shane stopped.

“Ready?”

“How long am I staying down here?” Ryan called out.

“A minute!”

“A minute?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck!”Ryan shook his head. “Alright. Lights off in three- two- one.”

As soon as darkness fell, Shane reached out, ready to feed.

He should have had easier time with this... He must have been more tired than he had realized.

“Oh God,” Ryan gasped. “Oh no no no no no.”

Shane was tempted by the familiar feeling of terror down the chute.

He grasped at Ryan.

“I hate this!”

Shane's shadows circled around the human, when his attention was drawn to something else.

It was something near Ryan, almost drowned by the familiar glow of his fear.

It was like there was something here, a pond after all.

Where there had been nothing but dry death something like a hole emerged. Pulling Shane towards it.

“I didn't even get to do all of the things in my bucket list,” Ryan grumbled.

There was a something Shane could feel at the bottom. Something like a tenseness in the atmosphere. A shadow talon brushed against it curiously.

And like cracking ice, it broke, revealing gaping hungry maw of emptiness underneath. A monster.

And for a fraction of a second it felt like Shane knew what it was like for a human to have his soul torn from his body.

Shane screamed, the sound of the shadows reverberating at the bottom.

“Did you hear that?”

“What the fuck was that-”

The chute, everything around him, that monster stalking him, was sucking into his power. It wanted to keep him there, to-

“Please tell me it's been a minute!” Ryan shouted. “Hello?”

Ryan started to run up the steps. “Whoah. Get me the fuck out of here!”

Disoriented, Shane struggled to stand. Where was up? He was being sucked down by something like a void, a hole in the world a grey nonexistence- Where was his human body-

He had to get away.

Where was away?

If he let himself be pulled in that was fine, wasn't it-

He ran.

It took him a while to even realize he was doing that, carried away from the source of this feeling by his human body. Was he feeling fear? It was hard to tell.

“Gogo go go go!”

_I have to get away from here or I'll-_

“Shane!”

Ryan.

He could feel Ryan.

Shane's mind caught up with his body, tearing itself away from whatever this was. Just in time for him to stumble with his feet, and fall to his face.

“Shane, dude, are you okay?”

Ryan was afraid. His terror was calling out to Shane, grounding him.

He grasped Ryan, his fingers digging into the fabric of his coat.

Ryan looked in his eyes.

And Shane drank deep in the nourishing fear, becoming fully aware of the body holding the human. He was present there, physically. With Ryan.

Ryan made a strangled voice in his throat. “A-are you okay? I-I mean-”

And Shane understood finally what was going on with his co-host.

Ryan was worried over Shane.

Shane let out a manic laugh, basking in the feeling. “I'm fine!”

He let go of Ryan. “Sorry.”

Ryan struggled backwards. “I- I felt something too.”

 _Yes, but you felt_ me.

Whatever that thing had been it hadn't targeted the humans at all.

“I just got- it wasn't ghosts, Ryan.”

“Well you're back to your normal insufferable self.”

Ryan shook, pulling the jacket tighter around himself. “I felt cold all of a sudden. I feel cold... This place- Fucking bullshit.”

Shane made sure he was fully settled back in. “It was cold, in the chute.”

“Yeah but I felt it afterwards, like it was something we pulled out with us, I felt it more-” Ryan waved his hand.

“Do you feel it now?” Shane asked.

“No,” Ryan said.

“It was some draft, Ryan.” Shane was feeling much braver now that he wasn't dying of hunger anymore.

Ryan gave him a look. “Huh. So, Mister Robot- even Mister Robot here is afraid of _something_.”

Mark jogged to them. “So what is going on here? I saw you fall?”

“Just got my feet all tangled up,” Shane said. “To be fair there's a lot of- lot of legs.” He pointed at Mark. “You ran too.”

He hadn't paid attention to Mark but he could tell now he too had been afraid.

“I figured that if _you_ ran it got to be something actually dangerous. Ryan's gonna-”

“Hey!”

“Ryan is going to jump at anything, but I figured, if Shane runs...” Mark shrugged.

That gave Shane pause. It was interesting. This kind of power he had over them. Now that Shane knew what to look for he recognized the part he had played in the humans' fear.

Mark had been afraid of something unknown in the chute because of him.

But Ryan-

Ryan had been afraid _for_ Shane.

That something bad had happened to Shane.

He felt almost dizzy at the realization.

“So, want to go back there?” Mark asked.

Ryan spoke for both of them when he let out a heartfelt: “Fuck that.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You okay, big guy?”

Shane turned to look at Ryan. “What? Yeah. I'm fine. I was just startled. It's the atmosphere.”

He saved up the 'big guy' remark for later. To mull over once he was back at his apartment.

He considered feigning he wasn't well but he shouldn't overdo it. If Ryan got genuinely scared something bad was happening to Shane he might not take him on these trips anymore.

“I'll be fine. We should keep going.”

“I'm gonna imagine that place is the closest thing to Hell,” Ryan said.

Shane was taken aback. Hell wasn't... That. And Ryan hadn't even felt anything. Except him.

“Not really, 'cause there's no malice there... It's just dead people, it's people who died of a disease, and they-”

Dead.

No. Worse than just dead...

“You gotta imagine when their like, soul is out and they're watching it get dragged like a World War II victim down this creepy, dingy tunnel, it's not the thing that you would like to see-”

Shane winced at the memory of something sucking at his self, siphoning his power.

“What do you want them to do like, carry them out on a- a golden velvet couch?”

His voice was shaking and he hated it.

Shane sat straighter. He was better fed now at least.

“If you look down this hallway long enough, your eyes are gonna look at that darkness... And eventually you start to see movement.”

He turned towards the camera. “Look it up, it's a thing in the Internet.”

“Who are you pointing to?”

“A-all the Shaniacs out there.”

“Shaniacs!” Ryan slapped his knee in laughter. “I hate you!”

He didn't though, that was the thing. Ryan quite enjoyed Shane's company, he knew that.

And when they got up to look for a place to sleep for the night, Shane could tell Ryan was making the effort to keep close to him. He had told Shane before he found him being close by a relief in these locations but here, now when they made their way through the building it felt like something more. Even when Shane made him do things like push his hand through a dark hole. If anything Ryan took in some way solace in Shane pushing him to do these things.

And Ryan would keep asking him how he felt, if he could sense anything.

It was nice, knowing he had this hold over Ryan.

If Shane told him he did feel weak, or nauseous, Ryan would react.

He could just tell Ryan he was uncomfortable, and that he couldn't do this, and he was pretty sure Ryan would end this shoot right there even if it did ruin the episode.

“I don't think our plan to sleep at the hallway will work,” Ryan said.

“Oh?”

“I mean look at it. It's dusty and gross.”

Ryan looked at Shane.

_Is he offering me a way out?_

“One of the rooms maybe?” Shane suggested.

Ryan looked at him. But he didn't press the issue and turned away.

“We need to talk to the site rep.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Ugh, this place is still so...” Ryan did his best to wipe at least some dust off the floor. He coughed.

“What a pleasant place you have taken me to, Ryan. Thanks.”

They had eventually decided to go for the room 502 in the third floor for their little sleepover.

“We _could_ still run away,” Ryan said, even as he settled into the sleeping bag. “If Mr- Mister Robosquatch, has had enough. Go on. I gave up at the Sallie house, I won't hold this over your head. But only because I could never reach that high.”

“And miss the top footage of us dying horribly? Absolutely not.”

Shane reached out carefully. He was feeling stronger now after he had fed, and the chute was far away. Whatever the thing had been it wasn't coming after him now.

“Sallie house at least was a house,” Ryan said. “We could just run away. From the front door. But here?”

“Here it's just- we can just jump out of the window!” Shane grinned.

That was true. Even if him turning into a bird and flying away probably would put an end to the show.

“If you see me getting up middle of the night and heading for the window take your camera out,” Shane mumbled. “Goodnight.”

“Shut up.”

Carefully, Shane reached out. It was still difficult to do so, but slowly he pushed through the dark. Towards the thing, the creature in the chute. It wasn't a demon. He was sure of that. And it wasn't a human either. An animal?

He reached out the smallest sliver of his power and the thing reacted, like he had gotten its attention.

He paused. So did the monster. No-

It was no creature.

It was an old portal to Hell, like a scar in the world.

There was no mind, no will to it, it just sucked any demon power it could get to, trying to fill itself up. It wasn't a creature. Nothing but a shadow Shane's imagination had conjured up.

There had been a demon here once.

But it had been-

Shane retreated to his human body, gasping.

“Oh my god did you hear that?” Ryan asked.

“No,” Shane lied. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you serious? You didn't hear that?”

Shane cocooned Ryan in his aura, comforted by his presence. Around here he felt more real. Back there for a second letting the hole suck him dry had felt inevitable, even peaceful.

He drifted into what he supposed was a half-dreaming state, since he was shaken into consciousness as he heard a phone beep.

Ryan was talking to someone.

“Hmm?”

“Shane's next to me,” Ryan said. “Literally, like, six feet from me a lady hung herself.”

“Ryan, why are you doing this to yourself?” a voice came from the phone.

A woman.

Ryan's girlfriend. Helen.

Of course _she_ didn't understand.

“I ask myself that a lot too. I don't understand why I do these things.”

Shane did. At least he had a better idea than anyone else.

He turned around, turning his back to Ryan.

Morning couldn't come soon enough.

* * *

 

And when they left the hospital behind them Shane was for the first time relieved to be leaving the location.

“There's the demon hole,” Ryan's voice was shaky, but Shane could tell he was feeling brave in the daylight.

For the demon there was no such difference. The old remnants of a portal felt as lonely and depressing as they had during the night. It was uncomfortable to think something like that could be in some way broken... Humans died all the time but for a demon to be... destroyed-

Shane put his hand on Ryan's shoulder.

Ryan looked at him, surprised.

“It's fine,” Shane hurried to say. Hopefully Ryan would mistake it for him comforting Ryan.

Although it did calm down Ryan a bit and to his surprise Shane found that... Pleasant?

Awkwardly, Shane let go.

He gave one last look at the chute.

“A shame. I would have loved to see a demon.”

 


End file.
